Machiavelli and His Influence On Modern International Law Victory Goes To The Swift, The Strong, and Sometimes, The Ruthless

MACHIAVELLI AND HIS INFLUENCE ON MODERN
INTERNATIONAL LAW: VICTORY GOES TO THE SWIFT, THE

STRONG, AND SOMETIMES, THE RUTHLESS
Theodore J. Biagini
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
International law was not born with Grotius, Vitoria, or Vattel.
Nor was it created by the Treaties of Westphalia. Todays international
law is the law of a global international society, and this society came
into existence around the end of the nineteenth century. What existed
before were regional normative systems, each of which claimed
universal validity based on each systems particular view of humanity
and of the world. Sinocentric, Islamocentric, and Eurocentric systems
were leading examples. With the subjugation of competing powers in
other civilizations by colonizing European powers, European
international law became the global standard.1
This western concept of international law was not born in a
vacuum. In this article, I will review the intellectual and philosophical
antecedents that underlie international law as it is understood today. In
particular, I will examine the role of Niccol Machiavelli (1469-1527)
in its development.
Machiavelli is considered a founder of modern political
science. Machiavelli was a politician, diplomat, and writer. He was
neither a jurist nor a lawyer. Nonetheless, through his widely-read
*
1
Theodore J. Biagini, Attorney at Law, was first admitted to practice law in

the State of California in 1965. He holds a B.S.C., J.D., and L.L.M. from
Santa Clara University; as well as an M.L.A. from Stanford University.
See MALCOLM N. SHAW, INTERNATIONAL LAW 13-41 (Cambridge
University Press, 5th ed. 2003).
LINCOLN LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 37
thoughts on political science and politics as actually practiced, he had

a significant influence on the evolution of international law. As Shirley
V. Scott has written, A mere glance through several mainstream
journals, including The International and Comparative Law Quarterly
and the European Journal of International Relations, suffices to
demonstrate that linking politics and law is an accepted mainstream
activity in both disciplines (though this is less apparent in the policyoriented Foreign Affairs).2 Thus, the political theory in Machiavellis
writings, in particular The Prince, 3 had much to say about the
evolution of international law as we know it.
I will show how Machiavelli, whether admired or despised,
was instrumental in affecting the thinking and writing of many
scholars and diplomats who succeeded him. Machiavelli and these
successors inspired the philosophers and jurists who did have a direct
effect on the evolution of the law of nations.
This Florentine statesman and writer of the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries has been vilified by many, praised by others,
but ignored by few. Today, after five hundred years of scholarly
debate and not-so-scholarly polemic, he remains the subject of intense
scrutiny and controversy. His writing, at times shocking but always
insightful, has generated a wide range of responses. Variously, he is
the sycophant who solicits his republican soul for aristocratic
patronage. He is the nerd whose revenge is delivered vicariously in the
form of macho prose. Or he is the feeble lecher trying to impress a
fetching young actress.4 On the other hand, some see a moral residue
in his writing, furthering the cause of republicanism. 5 The ultimate
critic of Machiavelli is Leo Strauss, who is adamant that Machiavelli is
Shirley V. Scott, Identifying the Source and Nature of a States Political

Obligation Towards International Law, 1 J. INTL L. & INTL. REL. 49, 50
(2005).
The copy of Niccolo Machiavellis The Prince used throughout this paper is
an English edition. For research purposes, the corresponding Italian text has
been provided. See infra note 64 for citations to both editions.
Timothy J. Lukes, Lionizing Machiavelli, 95 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 561 (2001)
(citations omitted).
Id.
2009-2010]
MACHIAVELLI AND HIS INFLUENCE
a teacher of evil.6 Whether nefarious or noble, Machiavelli is widely

acknowledged as being the Renaissance precursor of modernity. In
particular, he is often called the father of modern political science. E.
H. Carr writes, It was only with the break-up of the medieval system
that the divergence between political theory and political practice
became acute and challenging. Machiavelli is the first important
political realist.7
Machiavelli reintroduced realism into European political
thought, borrowing from and enhancing the realism handed down by
the ancients.8 Machiavellis view of humankind greatly influenced his
political and literary works. According to Machiavelli, men are
selfish, greedy, and cowardly opportunists, who will never willingly
do anything that does not further their own interests.9 This line of
thinking would reach its apex with the philosophy of the Englishman,
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who wrote that without the socializing
influence of a sovereign, the world would devolve into a war by all
against all.10
Machiavelli strongly believed that human nature is invariable,
unchangeable, and universal. Thus, he contended, a study of past
leaders and their actions could guide him and us to a usable political
science. Roberto Ridolfi writes:
[B]y practice and by intuition, his genius had led him to
be the first to appreciate in history that flavour which it
possesses, and to draw from it the principles and
general rules of a new science. This had as its basis the
theory that human nature, with its desires and vices, its
6
10
LEO STRAUSS, THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI 11 (Chicago University Press

1958).
E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, in FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW AND POLITICS Ch. 5 (Ooma A. Hathaway & Harold Hongju Koh eds.,
Thomson West 2005).
See discussion infra on the classical realists, particularly Thucydides,
Aristotle, and St. Augustine.
ANNETTE FREYBERG-INAN, WHAT MOVES MAN: THE REALIST THEORY OF
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND HUMAN NATURE 58 (State University of
New York Press 2004).
See LEO STRAUSS, THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF HOBBES 10-13 (Elsa M.
Sinclair trans., The University of Chicago Press 1963).
LINCOLN LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 37
virtues and weaknesses, does not change with the

passage of time.11
Machiavelli was a product of his times, and the times were full
of turbulence and stratagem. In Machiavellis day, the powerful and
the wealthy created their own standards, irrespective and disrespectful
of the laws of church and state. In his view, there is a clear division in
the daily struggle of lifethere are those who take, and those who are
taken. In this way of thinking, it is not virtuous to meekly allow
another to take what is there for the grabbing; it is unpardonable and
utterly foolish. Being a feeble object of anothers actions is tantamount
to an inexcusable sin. Virtue entails an understanding of the ways of
the world, both in comprehending how the world works and in
knowing how to get what one wants for ones self. If one misses out
on a God-presented opportunity, one is a fool for leaving behind what
could be rightly his or hers; leaving it for a more clever person who
will surely profit by the fools lack of acumen. These Machiavellian
principles of personal behavior were grafted into his view of how a
leader should conduct politics and warfare.
Machiavelli instructs his audience of princes and would-be
princes in the art and means of statecraft, and what is required to
become an accomplished, durable political leader. These qualities, a
bundle of character traits, he encapsulates in the Italian word virt.
When Machiavelli speaks of virt, he is not speaking of virtue as
understood in the classic Aristotelian, Ciceronian, and Christian sense
to be the habit of doing the right thing in the right way.12 Cascarelli
says:
[A]ccording to the general consensus, subsequent
writers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, JeanJaques Rosseau, and even Karl Marx ultimately take
their bearing from Machiavellis point of origin. And
that point of origin is this: The pursuit of virtue, that is,
moral perfection, is not possible, nor is it a legitimate
11
12
ROBERTO RIDOLFI, THE LIFE OF NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 147 (Cecil Grayson

trans., The University of Chicago Press 1963).
Joseph C. Cascarelli, Presumption of Innocence and Natural Law:
Machiavelli and Aquinas 41 AM. J. JURIS. 229, 234-35 (1996).
2009-2010]
goal of government or even a legitimate object of

society.13
Virt has much to do with machismo, an exaggerated sense of
manliness. For Machiavelli, virt in many contexts is a trait signifying
a particular kind of strength, that of virility. In fact, virt is derived
from vir, the Latin word for a male.14 Machiavelli contrasts the manly
virt that leads to freedom and glory with a feeble effeminacy, which
leads to slavery and infamy. Machiavellis virt is the internal spirit
and dynamic energy that drives a successful person to accurately
analyze a situation, and then to act timely and in an effective manner to
maximize the desired goal. And it is the end, the goal, and not the
means, that becomes important.
Conventional theories of international law, as espoused by
international law jurists, emphasize the normative aspects of
international law and the moral compulsion both inherent in and
compelled by those norms. Traditionalists in international law are akin
to the idealist branch of international relations. Idealists believe
international law and morality, rather than raw power alone, are key
influences on international events. International law refers to
principles and rules of conduct that nations regard as binding. Idealists
think that human nature is basically good. They believe good habits
(such as telling the truth in diplomatic dealings with other nations),
education, and the existence of international organizationssuch as
the UNfacilitate good relations between nations, and will result in
peaceful and cooperative international relationships.
Idealists see the world as a community of nations that have the
potential, and the goal, to work together to overcome mutual problems.
Even though there is generally no defined enforcement mechanism,
international lawyers claim a high rate of voluntary compliance by
states. As Louis Henkin has famously declared, almost all nations
observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of
13
14
Id. at 236-37 (emphasis added).

HANNA FENICHEL PITKIN, FORTUNE IS A WOMAN: GENDER AND POLITICS IN
THE THOUGHT OF NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI 25 (The University of Chicago
Press 1999).
LINCOLN LAW REVIEW
[Vol. 37
their obligations all of the time.15 Further, even if it is not in a states

best interests to comply with a norm of international law, international
lawyers argue that it will do so out of respect of its [universal laws]
universal legitimacy.16
Machiavelli would treat such ideas as the unsophisticated
ruminations of a fesso (fool). He was thoroughly convinced that
knowing persons and states act exclusively out of self-interest. The
hard international realism of Machiavelli and his followers follows
from their view that states are created and operated by self-absorbed
and self-interested women and men. The law that prevails in personal
and political situations is not the law of nations, but the law of the
junglethe realm of realism, not starry-eyed idealism.
In their very controversial book, How Nations Behave, Jack L.
Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner state their purpose in writing the book
as follows: Our aim is to integrate the notion of state interest with
simple rational choice models in order to offer a comprehensive theory
of international law.17 State interest is the code term used by realist
political scientists to describe their views on the interaction between
and among states. Under this theory, politicians and diplomats use
their offices to advance the interests of their own country, with little or
no regard for morality, friendship, or law. Conflict is inevitable, and
cooperation lasts only for as long as it is advantageous to the
cooperating parties. Nations are selfish and need to be armed, both to
advance their own interests and to thwart those of others. Power,
economic and military, is the lever that operates the world of
international relations. 18 Hans Morgenthau, one of the leading
proponents of realism, has written that in the iron law of international
politics . . . legal obligations must yield to the national interest. 19
Dedicated realists hold . . . that sovereignty precludes constraint on
15
16
17
18
19
LOUIS HENKIN, HOW NATIONS BEHAVE 47 (Columbia University Press 2nd

ed. 1979).
Thomas Meaney, Rules for Nations, THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Sept. 12,
2005, at 39.
JACK L. GOLDSMITH & ERIC A. POSNER, THE LIMITS OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW 3-4 (Oxford University Press 2005).
See LORI F. DAMROSCH ET. AL., INTERNATIONAL LAW 37-40 (4th ed. 2001).
See id. at 37.
2009-2010]
state behavior from without, barring the application of carrots and

sticks that sweeten or embitter national leaders [the prince, in
Machiavellis terms] cost-benefit analysis.20
In this article, I will show how these views are foreshadowed
by, and entirely consistent with, Machiavellis philosophy as spelled
out in The Prince.
Idealists resist the notion that they deal exclusively in
hypotheticals. As Andrew Moravcisk has written:
Postwar realist critics such as Hans Morgenthau and E.
H. Carr took rhetorical advantage of liberalisms
historical role as an ideology to contrast its purported
altruism (idealism, legalism, moralism, or
utopianism) with realisms theoretical concern with
human nature as it actually is [and] historical processes
as they actually take place.21
According to realists, the distribution of power
(economic, political, and military) among states determines
relations and outcomes in the international system.
These intellectual clashes between idealists and realists shape
not only state practice (actions, treaties, correspondence, etc.), but also
the way that the writers and practitioners view these actions. When
country X acts in accord with international law, the idealist tends to
view this act as X being bound by the legal principle involved, while
the realist searches for the self-interest behind the action.
Why is this contrast between idealists and realists important to
the study of international law? Why, and how, do Machiavellis fivecentury-old ideas matter? As Annette Freyberg-Inan writes:
All theoretically guided inquiry proceeds from
assumptions. In the social sciences the most basic of
20
21
Noah Rubins, Book Review, 20 FALL FLETCHER FORUM OF WORLD

AFFAIRS 189 (1996) (reviewing ABRAM CHAYES & ANTONIA HANDLER
CHAYES, THE NEW SOVEREIGNTY: COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL
REGULATORY AGREEMENTS (1998)).
Andrew Moravcisk, Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of
International Politics, 51 INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 513-54 (1997).
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[Vol. 37
such assumptions concern human nature and provide

the researcher with an idea of how human beings
operate and why they react to external stimuli the way
they do . . . [R]ealist international relations theory
suffers from overly pessimistic assumptions about
human nature, which can be traced through the
Athenians, the political philosophies of Niccol
Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes . . . . 22
Although I agree with the above quote, my thesis does not rely
on Freyberg-Inans above-quoted conclusions. I will examine the ideas
of various writers, including: Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, St.
Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Hobbes, others, and, of
course, Machiavelli himself. I shall outline the birth of the
philosophies, both idealist and realist, that underlie modern
international law. We shall see how powerful Machiavellis influence
has been in the law of nations.
But first, it will be profitable to briefly examine some of the
foundational theories that underlie Western thought. Any such
exploration must begin with a look at the Greek philosophers, whom I
discuss in the next chapter.
22
FREYBERG-INAN, supra note 9 at 155.
2009-2010]
CHAPTER TWO
AN ABBREVIATED LOOK AT GREEK POLITICAL THEORY
If current realists such as Goldsmith and Posner do not fit
precisely the mold of realists in the Machiavellian vein of realism, they
certainly owe much of their political philosophy to that school of
thought. They follow in a long line of realistic political thinkers. An
examination of the antecedents of political realism will help us to
recognize the debt all realists owe to the long realist tradition that was
first described by Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) in The War of the
Peloponnesians and the Athenians. In Thucydides account of a
meeting between Athenian and Melian diplomats over the
independence of the island of Melos, the Melians objected vehemently
to the Athenians that their invasion of Melos was unjustified. As
recounted by Thucydides, the Athenians responded as follows to those
protestations:
For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with
specious pretenses . . . and make a long speech that
would not be believed . . . since you know as well as we
do the right, as the world goes, is only in question
between equal power, while the strong do what they can
and the weak suffer what they must.23
The Athenians cited neither law nor morality as a basis for
their use of superior power. To them, the reality of the situation was
simple: you are weak and we are strong; our interests oblige us to take
over your island; you will do as we command. Even before the war
commenced, Athenian citizens had defended Athens right to an
empire, by brazenly asserting in a meeting before the assembly of
Sparta:
We have done nothing extraordinary, nothing contrary
to human nature in accepting an empire when it was
23
THUCYDIDES, THE WAR OF THE PELOPONNESIANS AND THE ATHENIANS 1.21

(Rex Warner trans., Penguin Books 1972).
10
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offered to us and then in refusing to give it up . . . . And

we were not the first to act in this way. Far from it. It
has always been a rule that the weak should be subject
to the strong; and besides, we consider that we are
worthy of our power.24
After Thucydides, western political thinkers turned to a less
confrontational, and a more idealistic, view of politics. Socrates is the
person traditionally thought to be the founder of western political
philosophy.25 Socrates was the teacher of Plato (c. 428-347 BC), who
in turn taught Aristotle (384-322 BC). These latter two philosophers
exerted a mighty influence on the Western (European) way of looking
at politics and international law.
Socrates (469-399 BC) was a contemporary of Thucydides.
They both lived through the Peloponnesian War. But in contrast to
Thucydides, Socrates did not write books. He contented himself with
being a gadfly to the conservatives who frequented the Athenian
agora, engaging in dialogue and argument with anyone who would
listen or who would submit to his incessant questioning. He was
surrounded by students, the most famous of whom is Plato. Most of
what we know about Socrates and his philosophy is found in Plato,
who at times ascribed his own views to his master. Socrates
contribution to philosophy was essentially ethical in character. He
taught that abstract concepts, such as justice and love, were knowable.
Knowledge of these constituted the basis of his teaching that an
examined life leads to a good (happy) life. Vice is the result of
ignorance. He believed that no one is willingly bad. Knowledge of the
right way to live ones life leads to virtue. Ignorance leads to vice. We
will see later in this article how this Socratic idealism is in sharp
contrast to Machiavellis views.
Plato was Socrates star pupil. The Republic, Platos major
political work, is concerned with the question of justice, and, therefore,
with the questions: what is a just state?, and who is a just
24
25
Id. at 1.80.
LEO STRAUSS, HISTORY OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1-2 (Leo Strauss &
Joseph Cropsey eds., The University of Chicago Press 3rd ed. 1987).
2009-2010]
11
individual?26 In addition to describing the path to a good life, Plato

set forth his theory of a good state, one which was not merely an agent
of control, but an agent of virtue. A large portion of the first book of
The Republic is devoted to a discussion of justice and whether or not
might makes right. In challenging The Republics protagonist,
Socrates, one of Platos characters, Thrasymachus, exclaims:
[J]ustice is simply the interest of the stronger . . . laws,
then, are designed to serve the interests of the ruling
class . . . . This is why I say that justice operates on the
same principle everywhere and in every society. Justice
is what advantages the interest of the ruling class . . .
the strongest class.27
Plato patiently deconstructs Thrasymachus theory and
proposes that the ideal state is composed of three classes of persons.
The economic structure of the state is maintained by the merchant
class; security needs are met by the military class; and political
leadership is provided by the rulers, the philosopher-kings.28
A particular persons class is determined by an educational
process that begins at birth and proceeds until that person has reached
the maximum level of education compatible with his or her interest
and ability. 29 Those who complete the entire educational process
become philosopher-kings. They are the ones whose minds have been
so developed that they are able to grasp the Forms (described below)
and, therefore, to make the wisest decisions. Indeed, Platos ideal
educational system is primarily structured so as to produce
26
27
28
29
PLATO, THE REPUBLIC (Richard W. Sterling & William C. Scott trans.,

W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 1985) (In particular, Book I).
Id. at 338c-e.
Id. at Books II-IV (Platos theory of education in a society is highly
specific. Children are to be bred and raised in a strict segregationist
regimen. The elite rulers are trained separately from, and differently than,
the merchant and artisan class. The aim of society is to create a ruling class
that is capable of true knowledge. True knowledge leads to good
government).
Id. at Book V (Plato is an early adopter of the concept that all positions in a
society should be open to women and that they should fully receive the
education necessary to thrive in those positions).
12
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philosopher-kings.30 Undoubtedly, if all states were ruled by wise and

prudent persons, international relations and the administration of
international law would be much more straightforward. The aim of
society is to create a ruling caste that is capable of true knowledge,
because Plato held that no person would intentionally do wrong or
evil; only an ignorant human would choose that course.
Platos theory of forms and his theory of knowledge are so
interrelated that they must be discussed together. Influenced by
Socrates, Plato was convinced that knowledge is attainable. He was
also convinced of two essential characteristics of knowledge. First,
knowledge must be certain and infallible. Second, knowledge must
have as its object that which is genuinely real, as contrasted with that
which is an appearance only. Because that which is fully real must, for
Plato, be fixed, permanent, and unchanging, he identified the real with
the ideal realm of reason, as opposed to the physical world of
perception, what he categorized as mere opinion. 31 To this
phenomenon, Plato gave the name Form. One consequence of this
view was Platos rejection of empiricism, the claim that knowledge is
derived from sense experience. This concept of the unreliability of the
senses is explained via his celebrated allegory of the prisoner in the
cave. 32 The shadows projected on the human mind are, if taken
literally, unexamined illusions and are not real in the sense that a
philosopher-king must understand reality. Furthermore, the objects of
sense experience are changeable phenomena of the physical world.
Hence, objects of sense experience are not proper objects of
knowledge. Only the knowledge of the Forms equates to truth and
goodness. Reason, properly used, results in intellectual insights that
are certain, and the objects of these rational insights are the abiding
universalsthe eternal Forms or substances that constitute the real
world.
30
31
32
Id. at Book III (the elite rulers are to be trained separately from, and
differently than, the merchant and artisan class. The aim of society is to
create a ruling caste that is capable of true knowledge).
Id. at Book VI (especially lines 509b through 511b, where he introduces his
famous concept of the divided line).
Id. at Book VII.
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13
Plato associates the traditional Greek virtues with the class

structure of his ideal state. Temperance is the unique virtue of the
artisan class; courage is the virtue peculiar to the military class; and
wisdom characterizes the rulers. Justice, the fourth virtue,
characterizes society as a whole. The just state is one in which each
class performs its own function well without infringing on the
activities of the other classes. The result is social harmony and peace.
Platos ethical theory rests on the assumption that virtue is
knowledge and can be taught, which has to be understood in terms of
his theory of Forms. The ultimate Form for Plato is the Form of the
Good, and knowledge of this Form is the source of guidance in moral
decision making. Plato also argued that to know the good invariably
leads one to do the good. The corollary of this is that anyone who
behaves immorally does so out of ignorance. This conclusion follows
from Platos conviction that the moral person is the truly happy
person, and because individuals always desire their own happiness,
they always desire to do that which is moral. Justice is produced in the
soul as in the state, by allowing reason to rule.
An important feature of Socratic-Platonic philosophy is the
concept that it is never right to do harm. One of the characters in The
Republic, Polemarchus, argues that from ancient times Greek
philosophers held that justice means that one should render every
person her due. That is, justice means an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth. We reward friends and punish enemies. Plato asks the Socratic
question: whether it is ever right to harm another person? Through the
character of Socrates, Plato analogizes a ruler to a physician. A
physician, in his profession, has as his object the health of the patient.
And, the Hippocratic Oath says, First, do no harm. The patient of
the ruler is the individual in society. The rulers, like the physicians,
professional responsibility is to promote the true excellence of the
citizen. Each person in the state has within herself a special, unique
gift, which the Greeks call arete. Arete is fostered when the ruler
brings forth the best in the subject and never when the ruler harms the
subject. Violence may exist, but we cannot rationalize it through
morality (right conduct). The ideal is peace and harmony, not through
force and brutality attained. It may be expedient to harm anotherin
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war, for examplebut it can never be right conduct. At bottom, Plato

denies that there is such a thing as a just war.
Platos pupil, Aristotle, broke with his tutors exaggerated
idealism. Plato advocated a state-centered form of society. Nuclear
families were to be abolished; the rearing and education of children
was to be the prerogative of the state. Private property was to be
extremely limited; except for personal items, all property would be
held in common. Aristotle rejects these reforms as impractical. He sees
the family as a natural institution that fosters civic virtue, as well as
mutual caring among loved ones. Likewise, Aristotle views private
property as natural, and efforts to abolish it as wrong and futile.
Finally, Aristotle opposed Platos rule by philosopher-kings.
These key reforms of Platoabolition of property and the
family and the installation of philosopher-rulerswere viewed by
Aristotle as expressions of Platos over-exaggerated idealism. Aristotle
wrote in his Ethics that moral virtue was a voluntary habit inculcated
by repetitive action of behaving in a morally virtuous manner. Virtue
was seen as a mean between two extremes, the just right
triangulation between opposite vices. For instance, courage was seen
as the golden mean between rashness and timidity. Whereas Plato
concentrated power in the hands of a few super-educated philosophers,
and the democrats put power in the hands of every male citizen,
Aristotle advocated a middle wayempowering the middle class as
the polity.
In his famous fresco located near the Sistine Chapel in the
Vatican Museums, Rafael (1483-1520) depicted a monumental scene
in which the famous fresco, The School of Athens, on the wall beneath
Philosophy, portrays an open architectural space in which Plato,
Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras, and other ancient philosophers are
engaged in discourse. The glory of Athens contributions to the
Western world are in full display.
2009-2010]
15
In the center of this epic painting, Plato is holding his Timaeus.

Aristotle is carrying a copy of his Nichomachean Ethics Timaeus.
Their gestures correspond to their interests in the philosophical fields;
Platos hand is upraised, pointing upwards towards Heaven and its
ideal Forms.
16
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Aristotle is holding his hand directly in front of himself,

depicting the middle way, the golden mean, between the intangible
celestial ideas of Plato and the materialistic obsession of many with
the goods and pleasures of the earth. Aristotle, with his background in
biology, believes in empirical observation. He looks around and sees
problems with the civic life in Athens. He sees that some changes are
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17
called for, but they are not the sweeping, revolutionary concepts of
Plato. In the very first chapter of The Politics by Aristotle, he writes:
Observation shows us, first, that every state
[polis] is an association; and, that every association is
formed with a view to some good purpose. I say good,
because in all their actions all men do in fact aim at
what they think good. Clearly then, as all associations
aim at some good, that association which is the most
sovereign among them all and embraces all others will
aim highest, i.e. at the most sovereign of all goods.33
There are several striking differences between Platos
and Aristotles approaches. First, observation is a valid method
in approaching truth. Unlike the murky shadows in Platos
cave, Aristotles vision is clear and trustworthy. Second,
political associations between persons of different backgrounds
are judged as good. These associations (family, city, state) are
teleologically destined to be good because they are observable
in the nature in which humanity finds itself. In this sense,
Aristotle is a practical realist as contrasted to Platos idealism.
Aristotle conflates a well managed city with the good. The
populace must be good; the rulers must be virtuous. The state is to be
an instrument of virtue, for a virtuous person strives for individual
good (health, money and family ties, all in moderation) and that leads
to the collective good. Although Aristotle can be considered a realist,
he is not the same kind of realist described by Machiavelli and those
that followed him. Here are some ways in which they differ:
1. As we shall see, Machiavelli sees the state not as an agent of
virtue, but as an instrument of virt, a masculine force that
allows an individual to assert his will.
2. Machiavelli warns his Prince that chasing ethereal principles
will bring the ruler to his ruin. Politics reflects life, real life, not
ethereal dreams.
33
ARISTOTLE THE POLITICS 54 (T.A. Sinclair trans., Penguin Group 1992)

(1962).
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3. Machiavelli has a much more pessimistic view of human

nature, closer to that of Thucydides than Aristotle.
When we later compare the threePlato, Aristotle, and
Machiavelliwe will find that Aristotle is in the middle position, the
mean between Plato and Machiavelli. The Athenians described by
Thucydides would side with Machiavelli for different reasons. They
argue that it is a principle of natural law that the strong should rule the
weak.34 Machiavelli understands that there are morals handed down by
the ancients and the Christian Church, which are good standards to
aspire to. But, he argues that they are not an everyday part of politics.
Politics is the study of the efficacious, what Machiavelli calls la verit
effetuale (the effective truth).35 This concept will be discussed in more
detail later in this article.
The discussion now turns to the contributions of Cicero and
two giants of the middle ages: Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas,
who succeeded the Greeks and preceded Machiavelli. Their writing
and political theories helped form not only Western political
philosophy, but also international law, especially with reference to the
doctrine of a just war.
34
35
THUCYDIDES, supra note 23 at 80:

We have done nothing extraordinary, nothing contrary to human nature in
accepting an empire when it was offered to us and then in refusing to give it
up . . . . And we were not the first to act in this way. Far from it. It has
always been a rule that the weak should be subject to the strong; and
besides, we consider that we are worthy of our power.
See the discussion of la verit effetuale infra Chapter Four.
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19
CHAPTER THREE
CICERO, AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS,
AND NATURAL LAW
Natural law is an ethical concept that presents a set of
principles based on what the theory assumes to be the permanent
characteristics of human nature that can serve as a standard for
evaluating personal conduct and civil laws. Natural law is contrasted
with civil, positive lawthe enactments of a sovereign that bind its
subjects. With respect to the study of jurisprudence, Murphy and
Coleman state that Natural law theories maintain that there is an
essential (conceptual, logical, necessary) connection between law and
morality. 36 A leading contemporary natural law scholar, Oxford and
Notre Dame Professor John Finnis, says we can, in a broad sense:
[S]peak of laws wherever we speak of normativity, that
is of general directions considered as counting . . . in
ones deliberations about what to do . . . . Though it too
has a range of meanings, natural can be used to
signify that some of those criteria or standards are
somehow normative prior to any human choices.37
Thus, Natural law, then, is one of the theories that intersect the
rules of ethical conduct and the civil laws that govern humans. The
concept is as old as the ancient Greeks. Heraclitus (c. 500 BCE)
claimed that a divine wisdom infuses the universe and that all civil law
springs from the divine.38 Plato and Aristotle argued against the notion
36
37
38
JEFFRIE G. MURPHY & JULES L. COLEMAN, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW: AN

INTRODUCTION TO JURISPRUDENCE 11 (Westview Press 1990).
See John Finnis, Natural Law: The Classical Tradition, in THE OXFORD
HANDBOOK OF JURISPRUDENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF LAW 1 (Jules Coleman
& Scott Shapiro eds., Oxford University Press 2002).
THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY 376 (Robert Audi ed.,
Cambridge University Press 1999).
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that the only standards of action are those that are created by positive
social facts, customs, or commands.39
Zeno (334-262 BCE) introduced Stoicism at the beginning of
the third century BCE. Central to Stoicism was the concept that moral
and natural law were the same. Upon death, philosophical detachment
from good and evil or pain and pleasure was emphasized, because only
in that way could one exercise good reason. The universe was said to
consist of a living, material, reasoning substance known as Nature or
God, which is the guiding principle of all being, including human
existence. To use reason means not only using logic, but also to
understand the natural processes, or universal reason, inherent in all
things. In order to lead a happy, fulfilled life, one must live according
to reason, that is, Nature.40
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) was a Roman statesman,
orator, and writer, but not, strictly speaking, a philosopher. In Rome,
he studied law and oratory. In Greece, he continued his philosophical
studies and inquiries. Cicero was eclectic in his thinking, adopting
parts of a philosophy while adopting other parts of the same
philosophy. Cicero was familiar with the Roman concept of the law of
naturejus naturalthat came from the Greek Stoics.41
Roman concept of the law of naturejus naturalcomes from
Greek Stoics (third century BC). In discussing the Stoic viewpoint,
Cicero wrote:
He who is to live in accordance with nature [as Stoics
recommend] must base his principles upon the system
and government of the entire world. Nor again can
anyone judge truly of things good and evil, save by a
knowledge of the whole plan of nature and also of the
life of gods, and of the answer to the question whether
39
40
41
Finnis, supra note 37, at 3-4.

THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY, supra note 38, at 879-81.
ARTHUR NUSSBAUM, A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE LAW OF NATIONS 20 (The
Macmillan Company 1950).
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21
the nature of man is or is not in harmony with that of

the universe.42
Among his many works, Cicero wrote two dialogues, De
Republica (On the Commonwealth) and De Legibus (On the Laws).
These dialogues were similar to Plato in title and form. However,
Cicero departed from Plato in several ways. First, Ciceros discussions
were based on facts and history, not theoretical first principles.
Second, in De Republica, Cicero put forth the Roman mixed
constitution as the ideal form of government. Third, in his De Legibus,
Cicero examines the actual laws (including the jus gentium) then
existing in Rome, not the theoretical best practices found in Plato.
Cicero claimed that law is [T]he highest reason, implanted in Nature,
which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.43
Arguing against an early form of strict positivism, he wrote:
Socrates was right when he cursed, as he often
did, the man who first separated utility from Justice; for
this separation, he complained, is the source of all
mischief . . . the most foolish notion of all is the belief
that everything is just which is found in the customs or
laws of nations.44
Finally, he concluded, Law is the distinction between things
just and unjust, made in agreement with that primal and most ancient
of all things, Nature.45 For Cicero, there could not be different laws in
Athens and in Rome. There was only one eternal and unchanging law,
valid for all nations and all times, which is knowable by the use of
human reason.46
42
43
44
45
46
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, DE FINIBUS BONORUM ET MALORUM 293

(Harris Rackham trans., The Macmillan Company 1914).
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, THE GREAT LEGAL PHILOSOPHERS: SELECTED
READINGS IN JURISPRUDENCE 44 (Clarence Morris ed., University of
Pennsylvania Press 1971).
Id. at 46-48.
Id. at 51.
See BRIAN BIX, NATURAL LAW THEORY: A COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY OF
LAW AND LEGAL THEORY 223-24 (Dennis Patterson ed., Blackwell
Publishers, Ltd. 1996).
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Cicero, a trained lawyer and brilliant practitioner, understood

how Roman tradition influenced the evolution of international law.
They had developed the idea of a jus gentium, a body of laws designed
to govern the treatment of aliens (non-citizens) subject to Roman rule
and the relations between Roman citizens and aliens. 47 Jus gentium
was Roman national law, particularly as applied to non-citizens.
Roman law recognized, in principle, the duty of a nation to
refrain from engaging in warfare without a just cause, and originated
the idea of a just war. The just war concept was re-examined, from a
Christian point of view, by Aurelius Augustinus (354-430 CE) (more
commonly St. Augustine of Hippo; often, simply Augustine).48 He
was a towering and seminal figure in creating an intellectual bridge
between classic Greco-Roman thought and the newer Christian belief
system. Augustine brilliantly initiated the merging of his eras Greek
philosophical heritage and Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural
traditions. He was one of the most respected of the early Christian
philosopher-theologians and become an authority that was quoted and
cited heavily in medieval philosophy. Augustines authority and
thought came to exert a pervasive and enduring influence well into the
modern period.
Augustine was born a Roman citizen in what is now Algeria
and lived all but four of his seventy-five years in that country. In 383
CE, after completing his education and after he had been teaching for a
number of years, he traveled from Northern Africa to Italy, where he
found employment as a professor of rhetoric in Milan. While there, he
was introduced to Neo-Platonism, underwent a conversion, and was
baptized into the Christian faith. His justly famous autobiography,
Confessions, chronicles the first thirty-two years of his inner life. In
391 CE, the congregation of Hippo Regius ordained Augustine a
priest. He was elevated to the bishopric of Hippo four years later.
Early in life, Augustine was heavily influenced by Cicero. He
happened upon Ciceros writings and became enamored of philosophy,
47
48
NUSSBAUM, supra note 41, at 19.

The history of Augustines life contained in this paper is largely based on
the article St. Augustine, found in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2002/entries/augustine
(last visited March 16, 2010).
2009-2010]
23
not as an academic study, but as a love of learning all he could about

human nature and human behavior, encompassing philosophy,
religion, and psychology.
The wisdom that Augustine sought was a fusion, correction,
and reconciliation of the conflicting views of the various Greek
schools; such as Epicurean, Stoic, Skeptic, and Neo-Platonist, with the
many Christian views then prevalent: orthodox and unorthodox. His
fascination with Neo-Platonism, dating back to his Milan days,
allowed him to view both the Christian Church and its scriptural
tradition as having an intellectually satisfying and unique content.
Augustine came to regard God as the ultimate source and point of
origin for all being, goodness, and truth. God is a fixed point which
unifies all within an abiding and providentially ordained rational
hierarchy. In holding that there is a unity in the universe, Augustine
follows Cicero and the other Stoics, as described above in this chapter.
Augustines legacy is that his works forever shaped Christian thought
on politics, philosophy, psychology, theology, and many other
subjects.
In exploring philosophy and religion, Augustine examined the
relationship between Church and state, being mindful of Christs
admonition to render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, while
at all times realizing that the eternal kingdom of heaven was much
more important than a transitory earthly state. Later thinking on war,
especially that of Thomas Aquinas, was based on St. Augustines
theory of the just war as laid out in his On the City of God. Augustine
developed a theology of just war, one which is acceptable under
certain conditions. Firstly, war must occur for a good and just purpose
rather than for self-gain or mere exercise of power. Secondly, it must
be waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state. Thirdly,
love must be a central motive even in the midst of violence. Augustine
saw war as a means to deal with sin. War was a judicial action in
which the people fighting were righting a wrong, or as Augustine put
it, justa bella ulciscuntur injuries (just wars avenge injuries). One
has only to look at the justification for intervention and the very recent
bombing of Serbia by NATO to realize that Augustines ideas on a just
war still exert an influence.
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Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) (Saint Thomas) is one of the

most renowned proponents of natural law. His views were
incorporated into a system known as scholastic philosophy and were
accepted as authoritative by Christian Europe (that is, the West) from
his lifetime through about 1450. Continuing to this day, Aquinas in
particular, and his followers, exert an influence on Roman Catholic
philosophy and theology. Aquinas was a Dominican friar born and
educated in Italy, but came to prominence as a teacher, scholar, and
writer at the University of Paris.49 He died at the rather young age of
forty-nine en route to the Second Council of Lyon. His opus includes
works on both philosophy and theology. When discussing philosophy,
he attempted to rely solely on human reason. While writing and
lecturing on theology, he clearly assumed a faith in divine revelation.
He strongly denied that the things revealed by God to humans through
faith could not be opposed to truths arrived at by a persons use of
right reason. Because Aquinas held that the existence of God could be
proved by strictly logical and philosophical means, he was able to
incorporate the concept of God and divine law into his theories of law.
Classic natural law theory states that there is a logical and
indispensable connection between law and morality. 50 Reason can
discover both that which is moral and that which is right. The higher
law, divine law, is reflected in the natural order of things, so that a
reasonable person (using God-given powers of reasoning) can discover
laws to govern oneself and the community by right reason alone. Right
reason, of course, is that which allows humans to know what is
necessary in order to lead a moral and happy life. Aquinas stated that
law is:
[N]othing else than an ordinance of reason for the
common good, promulgated by him who has care of the
community . . . . Human law has the nature of law in so
far as it partakes of right reason . . . . So far as it
deviates from reason, it is called an unjust law . . . .
Such are acts of violence rather than laws because, as
49
50
THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY, supra note 38, at 36-40.

MURPHY & COLEMAN, supra note 36, at 11.
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25
Augustine says, a law that is not just seems to be no law

at all.51
The logical conclusion is that a valid law needs to be based on
the moral laws that a person discovers. In insisting on the primacy of
reason, Aquinas is perfectly in step with the Western tradition as
espoused by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Aquinas did not
elaborate on international law as such.52 But, he did develop a very
important concept known to both the ancient and modern erasthe
determination of whether war is permissible to achieve political ends,
and if so, under what circumstances it is allowed. The theory of a just
war was not new to Aquinas. Socrates, speaking with and through
Plato, doubted that there could be such a concept. Cicero and Augustus
recognized that a war waged under proper circumstances could be in
accord with the laws of nature, and consequently, could be considered
as within the law of man. Aquinas fully developed a theory of just war,
relying heavily on Augustine, as well as the Scriptures. In two of the
early modern treatises on international law, Hugo Grotius (15831645) brings his own views of natural law on maritime law (Mare
Liberum) and on war (De Jure Belli ac Pacis).
It is worthwhile to here to quote Aquinas at an unusual length, so as to
better understand his views on the morality of conducting war, which
are important to those who wrote on international law. In his grand
opus, Summa Theologica, Aquinas states that three things are
necessary in order for a war to be just:
First, the authority of the sovereign by whose
command the war is to be waged . . . . The natural order
conducive to peace among mortals demands that the
power to declare and counsel war should be in the
hands of those who hold the supreme authority.
Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that
those who are attacked, should be attacked because they
deserve it on account of some fault. Wherefore
Augustine says [citation omitted]: A just war is wont
to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a
51
52
Id. at 15.
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nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make

amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to
restore what it has seized unjustly.
Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents
should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the
advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Hence
Augustine says [citation omitted]: True religion looks
upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for
motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the
object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of
uplifting the good. For it may happen that the war is
declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just
cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked
intention. Hence Augustine says [citation omitted]:
The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for
vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever
of revolt, the lust of power, and such like things, all
these are rightly condemned in war.53
The influence of Aquinas, his predecessors, and his followers
in the Middle Ages (1300-1450) can hardly be overstated. The
continuing clashes between the Popes and the Emperors of the Holy
Roman Empire resulted in many wars, fought on the ground and in the
minds of the men and women living under their influence. Both
claimed to be sources of universal law; i.e., law that applied
throughout Europe. The Popes were quick to adopt Aquinas as both
were sources of a kind of universal lawlaw that applied
throughout Europe. And the Pope, of course, proclaimed himself to be
the divinely installed and inspired protector of the divine law. In that
role, he could trump the laws of other potentates, including the
Emperor and his vassals.
At the time, there were no nation-states in the modern sense.
Principalities and city-states had relationships among themselves and
they created customary laws and treaties to govern their affairs. The
law merchant and developments in maritime law promoted a fast53
THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGICA, available at http://www.

newadvent.org/summa/3040.htm.
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27
growing international trade. Lacking other means of enforcement,

claims against other states were enforced via reprisal and self-help. A
code of chivalry provided some relief from unrestrained warfare.
Permanent consulates and emissaries, such as Machiavelli, needed
diplomatic protection.54
These are the tiny seeds from which sprang a nascent
international law that, over the centuries, slowly developed into
international law as we know it. In the next chapter, I will examine the
life and times of Machiavelli. He was in the middle of the transition
from Middle Age beliefs to Renaissance thought. We will see how,
though he was learned in the classical traditions of law and morality,
he fiercely reacted to and shred the veil of classical natural law in such
a way that it has never been the same.
54
See NUSSBAUM, supra note 41, at 31-36.
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CHAPTER FOUR
MACHIAVELLI'S REVOLUTION
Machiavelli and The Prince are considered important today
because the modern approach to political science began with
Machiavelli and continued with Thomas Hobbes, writing in England a
century later. Machiavelli is often counted as the first modern political
scientist, searching for natural explanations of how things function
without references to Nature or God. Like Aristotle and Plato,
Machiavelli was familiar with compact city-states created by humans.
He searched the laws that governed the founding and operation of a
successful state. He believed he found them in history and the very
nature of humans.
Machiavelli lived during the height of the Italian Renaissance.
In the years preceding his writings, Western Europe, especially Italy,
was undergoing dramatic political and cultural changes. Feudalism
was dying. Commercial activity was on the rise. The medieval concept
of unity was losing grounds to an individualistic humanism. Before
examining Machiavellis role in the dramatic changes that took place,
it is instructive to resume the analysis of the role that those thinkers
who succeeded the Greeks had on western thought.
Machiavelli was somewhat acquainted with Greek thought, but
his studies of the ancients concentrated on the Romans. He was
familiar with Cicero and his writings. Among his many works, Cicero
wrote two dialogues: On the Republic and On the Laws. These
dialogues recalled those of Plato in title and form. Ciceros
conclusions, however, differed substantially from Platos. In On the
Republic, Cicero portrays a discussion among political and intellectual
leaders concerning the best form of government. In contrast to Platos
Republic, where the best regime is entirely hypothetical, Ciceros
characters accept that Romes mixed constitution was best. Similarly,
in Ciceros On the Laws, the characters do not discuss theoretical legal
systems as they do in Platos Laws. Instead, they focus on the laws
promulgated for Roman citizens.
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29
Cicero, while indebted to the ideals of Greek philosophy, was

nonetheless wed to Roman practicality. His approach, reliance on
experience while upholding certain ideals, is a middle way between
Platos idealism and Machiavellis realism. There is a certain, but not
altogether identical, resemblance between the lion and the fox
discussed both in Chapter 18 of Machiavellis The Prince (discussed in
more detail later) and in another of Ciceros political work, De
Officiis.55
In De Officiis, Cicero made the point that he took to be
obviousthe methods of humans and beasts are different, and the
human is nobler. Cicero had written, [T]here are two ways in which
injustice may be done, either through force or deceit; and deceit seems
to belong to a little fox, force to a lion. Both of them seem alien to a
human being; but deceit deserves a greater hatred.56
Why did the idealist Cicero loathe deceit? Because deceit was
the subversion of Ciceros central virtue: justice that was the keystone
to right living and the product of a properly formed mind. In Ciceros
mind, the seriousness of the subversion was compounded because the
most human of faculties, the mind, perpetrated it. The appropriate
exercise of ones mind ought to promote, not subvert, justice. The
realist Cicero then went on to say that only in exceptional
circumstances, like war, could one use leonine force. He condemned,
however, the use of fraud even in these extreme circumstances. That
is, sometimes one could act as a lion, but never as a fox. Cicero, with a
denunciation of duplicity, railed against those who just at the time
when they are most betraying trust, act in such a way that they may
appear to be good men. 57 This line of thinkingthat honesty is
required of a leaderlater gained the support of Christianity,
humanism, and traditional Italian society.
Medieval Christian scholars picked up much of their political
philosophy from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and their followers. They
added theological inputs from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and other
55
56
57
J. Jackson Barlow, The Fox and the Lion: Machiavelli Replies to Cicero, 20
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT 627-45 (1999).
Id. at 636.
Id. at 637.
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Christian theologians. The result was that Western thought in medieval

times (at least through the thirteenth century) continued the ideal
tradition: in order to be a good ruler, one needed to be a good person.
In other words, a good ruler needed to be a virtuous person.
In addition to the Greeks and Romans, western European
medieval philosophical and theological traditions were heavily
indebted to Augustine. According to the famous Protestant theologian
and eminent realist, Reinhold Niebuhr, Augustine is by general
consent, the first great realist in Western history.58
Augustines realism is grounded, as most realism is, in a
certain view of human nature. Man was forever changed by the sinful
actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden. That sin of pride, direct
disobedience to Gods command, henceforth tainted humans with
Original Sin. In his elaboration of the doctrine, Augustine emphasized
the notion that the taint of that original sin is transmitted from
generation to generation by the act of procreation. He took this idea
from an earlier theologian Tertullian, who actually coined the phrase
original sin. The result is that every human is born imperfect and prone
to pride, selfishness, and self-interest. Among the consequences of
Original Sin, Augustine lists the ways of the world as exemplified by
the city of man, Rome, where lust, power, and greed reign supreme.
He contrasted this to the city of God, paradise, where peace, justice,
and goodness triumphed. It is not accidental that Machiavelli took
Rome as his model for his own realistic view. What Augustine saw as
Romes vices, Machiavelli took as political virtues.
Under the classical view, when several virtues conflicted, such
as courage and temperance, prudence was the habit that ordered the
other virtues.59 In politics, justice was deemed the preeminent virtue,
for justice collected all the other virtues toward the common good of a
community as determined by the just, and, therefore, virtuous,
58
59
ED. R. M. BROWN, THE ESSENTIAL REINHOLD NIEBUHR 124 (Yale

University Press 1986).
Machiavelli makes abundant use of the word prudent in describing the
actions of those he considers to be imbued with virt, with his virt being
liberally sprinkled with deception, fraud, and chicanery when deemed
necessary.
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31
lawgiver. 60 In the accepted wisdom, the successful prince was the

virtuous prince, the one who did right in order to do good things for
his charges. Such a prince acted in harmony with the order of things,
with the subject rendering service and taxes to the governor, who in
turn, as guide and protector, would act virtuously in protection of the
governed.61 The realms and rules of heaven and earth were seen as a
unity. The principles that governed the city of man were, by reflection,
the same rules that governed the city of God. The leader who did not
act in accordance with the principles of justice was not only deemed a
bad person, but was also adjudged a bad leader, since he was in
breach of the notion that only a good person could be a good ruler.
The classical ideals were not unchallenged in the decades
before Machiavelli. Machiavellis predecessors modified some of this
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; they rebelled against the
principle that the true law conforms to nature.62 Nevertheless, classical
views of the good and just leader persevered as an ideal. Machiavelli
brought this line of thinking forward. He single-mindedly wanted his
prince to understand the practicalities of what it took to be an effective
leader. At times, he said, doing wickedness was necessary for
success.63 It was abundantly clear to him that history taught that the
standard virtues needed to be breached in order for success, for, he
wrote, if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that
something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin;
whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him
security and prosperity.64
60
61
62
63
64
Harvey C. MANSFIELD, MACHIAVELLIS VIRTUE 6-23 (University of

Chicago Press 1996) (my discussion of classic and humanistic concepts of
virtue in this section is to a large extent based on Mansfields work).
There are obvious echoes of Platos Republic in humanistic moral and
political philosophy.
See generally CESARE VASOLI, UMANESIMO E RINASCIMENTO (Palumbo
1969).
STRAUSS, supra note 6, at 59.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, THE PRINCE Ch. 5 (N. H. Thompson trans., P. F.
Collier & Son 1910) (1515); See also NICCLO MACHIAVELLI, IL PRINCIPE
(Tommaso Bavaro ed., Mursia 1990) (1943) (the Italian reads: perch, se
si considera bene tutto, si trover qualche cosa che parr virt, e
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It was Machiavelli who finally broke the mold and the

consistent chain of thought from Socrates to the early Renaissance
political thinkers and, in the process, brought modernity to the study of
political science. From Machiavelli forward, the study of political
science was never the same. Francis Bacon wrote:
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and other
writers of that class, who openly and unfeigned declare
or describe what men do, and not what they ought to do
. . . for without this, virtue is open and unfenced; nay, a
virtuous and honest man can do no good upon those
that are wicked, to correct and reclaim them, without
first exploring all the depths and recesses of their
malice.65
The classic political philosophers advanced the
individual and collective search for higher quests, knowledge
and a good life. Politics served a useful role in the pursuit of
the summum bonum (greatest good). For the classicist, there
was an all-important difference between the way things are and
the way they ought to beand that politicians should strive to
bring conditions closer to the unreal, ideal ought-situation.
They rejected the common view that might make right, that
justice is what is in the interest of the stronger. For
Machiavelli, by contrast, politics is the prime subject, second to
none. Reasons of state (raisons dtat) are decisive reasons
that outweigh any moral or ethical considerations. The good of
the state is an end in itself and not just a means to encouraging
the development of individual virtue or human happiness.
For example, Machiavelli inverts Ciceros self-evident
proposition that the human way is superior to the brute force exerted
by a lion. In Chapter 18 of The Prince, Machiavelli presses Ciceros
logic, obliterates his ethic of honest action, validates foxy behavior,
and demonstrates his complete approval of fraud and deceit as an
acceptable modus operandi for humans. Machiavelli begins the chapter
65
seguendola sarebbe la ruina sua: e qualcuna altra cosa che parr vizio e
seguendola ne nasce la sicurit e il ben essere suo.).
Id. at 273 (quoting Francis Bacon in the Marginalia).
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33
by stating that while it is praiseworthy to act with integrity, those

princes have accomplished most who paid little attention to their
promises, but who knew how to manipulate the minds of men
craftiness and sharp thinking [con lastuzia aggirare i cervelli]. In the
end, these won out over those who tried to act honestly.66 He goes on
to say that there are two ways of fighting: by the laws of humans,
which disdain fraud and violence; or by the force of animals. Since
human methods do not always suffice to get what one wants,
sometimes one must resort to animal-like behavior, and thus a prince
must know how to make good use of both the beast and the man.67
His support for this proposition is original, an argument based on a
reference to the centaur, Chiron, whom he asserts was the teacher of
Achilles and other ancient heroes. His implication is that Chiron taught
the heroes to seek and follow la verit effettuale, the way of the world,
and lofty human methods were insufficient to get what one wanted.
Like Cicero, the animals Machiavelli presents for princely
emulation are the fox and the lion. A prince, he says, should imitate
the fox in order to avoid the traps laid out in life, and emulate the lion
to overawe the strong (but less perceptive) wolves that abound. The
worldly wiles of the foxacuity, ingenuity, and the ability to
deceiveare essential; those relying on the brutish qualities of a lion
alone are badly mistaken. 68 Thus, prudent princes should not keep
their word if to do so goes against their interests, or if the
circumstances for the promise have changed. The justification for this
antisocial behavior is the perfidy of human beings. Further, since a
princes subjects are untrustworthy, there is no reciprocal obligation on
the part of the prince.
Machiavelli discussed two types of morality: pagan and
Christian. According to Machiavelli, Greek and Roman virtue was
66
67
68
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 18 (the Italian reads: quelli principi
avere fatto gran cose che della fede hanno tenuto poco conto, e che hanno
saputo con l'astuzia aggirare cervelli delli uomini; et alla fine hanno
superato quelli che si sono fondati in sulla lealt.).
Id. (the Italian reads: Per tanto a uno principe necessario sapere bene
usare la bestia e lo uomo.).
Id. (the Italian reads: Coloro che stanno semplicemente in sul lione non se
ne intendono.).
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characterized by discipline, valor, strength, and vigor, and, in

particular, asserting ones own proper claims and having the requisite
skills to attain them. Christian virtue emphasized mercy, meekness,
charity, concern with the after-life, and the paramount need for
personal salvation.69 Machiavelli deplored Christianitys emphasis on
humility and heaven. He instead urged individual virt (manliness,
courage, pluck, fortitude, boldness, valour, steadfastness, tenacity) to
gain honor and gloryperhaps mans highest pleasure.70
His practical advice, based on detaching politics from morality,
ran counter to the established religion and the then-prevailing
humanistic philosophy, which was composed of a mixture of
scholastic Aristotelianism and Ciceronian concepts. Both traditions
mandated moral rectitude in politics. Aristotle wrote in his Ethics that
moral virtue was a voluntary habit inculcated by repetitive action of
behaving in a morally virtuous manner. Virtue was seen as a mean
between two extremes, the just right triangulation between opposite
vices. For instance, courage was seen as the mean between rashness
and timidity.
Machiavelli is clearly interested in personal and political
virtue, but one of a substantially different genre from the orthodox.
First, he makes a clear division between personal morality and the
conduct of politics. Machiavelli is concerned with earthly reality, with
real pain, real joy, real situations, and not heavenly aspirations. His
aim is for a government that provides everyday security and stability
to its people, one that promotes peace and prosperity.71 Saving souls
(if there are such entities) or winning debates is not his focus.
Establishing a stable government is. This demands good orders (a
constitution) and good modes (a set of laws and institutions to enforce
69
70
71
Timothy P. ONeill, Two Concepts of Liberty Valance: John Ford and

Isaah Berlin, and Tragic Choice on the Frontier, 37 CREIGHTON L. REV.
480 (2004).
Allen Z. Hertz, Honours Role in the International States System, 31 DENV.
J. INTL L. & POLY 116 (2002).
HARVEY C. MANSFIELD, MACHIAVELLIS NEW MODES AND ORDERS: A
STUDY OF THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY 84 (University of Chicago Press 1979)
(according to Mansfield, Machiavelli held that the prime basis for a princes
authority and power came from the populaces need for security).
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35
those laws). Constitutions and civil laws are human creations, not
divine constructs.
Although he liberally sprinkles his works with references to
Fortuna, that demigoddess of history that controlled human fate, not
once does he invoke divine providence to explain a historical
occurrence or to solve a problem of politics or war. The instability that
was beleaguering Italy was the cause of continuing cycles of war,
death, and poverty. Monks, priests, and philosophers might preach the
delights of a distant and unseen heavenly city, but they were unable to
cure the Italian disease. He, on the other hand, wanted to solve the
ever-present pain of this earthly domain.
Machiavelli felt strongly that Italy and Italians were enfeebled
and that the ancient Roman virt had gone into hiding. He laid the
blame on the philosophers, who had defined the good life as the
leisurely contemplation of ideas and concepts, and on the Christians,
who had preached that the ultimate good life was to be found not on
earth, but in heaven. They held worldly concerns to be transitory and
inferior distractions to ones true goal, salvation. For Christians, God
had become man in the person of Jesus, and Jesus, through the
supreme example, had shown that the path to salvation was through
poverty, humility, weakness, and long suffering. The consensus of
both secular and religious thinkers was that earthly matters were of
secondary importance to intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Machiavelli
railed against the Christian humility and weakness that he said had
displaced virt in the Italians, in the process creating persons who, in
order to enter Paradise, are more concerned with bearing their
oppression than avenging it. Machiavellis viewpoint cannot be more
different. Life is lived on this planet, and Christian salvation and hope
is absent from his writings and he speaks with contempt of Christian
glorification of humble and contemplative men.72 Eternal glory is
obtained here and now. It is the fame that can be achieved only by
vigorous action, not by otiose contemplation or meditation.
His virt goes beyond a virtue of manliness derived from the
marriage of philosophy and rhetoric that Petrarch had adopted from
72
MAURIZIO VIROLI, MACHIAVELLI 24 (Oxford University Press 1998).
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Cicero.73 Petrarch, an innovator of Renaissance humanism, promoted

his own form of Ciceronian philosophy as a replacement for
Aristotelian scholasticism.74 Ciceros fortitude was the virtue proper to
humans; stoic fortitude in performing ones duty was the highest
exercise of that virtue.75 Ciceros virtuous person was a combination
of a morally right thinker and a morally right actor. Petrarchs
marriage of philosophy and rhetoric differs from Cicero; it is not
Ciceros brand of rugged and heroic heroism, but is rather a pious,
moderate patriotism close to magnanimity and denouncing rather than
appealing to base instinct.76 Since Jesus himself had paid the ultimate
price for performing his duty, Christian humanism could eagerly adopt
the Ciceronian view as modified by Petrarch, while adding to it
Christianitys professed disdain for worldly pursuits. 77 Renaissance
humanists followed and admired Petrarchs Christianized Cicero.
Machiavelli admired Petrarch, but not his philosophy. Machiavelli
ended The Prince by appropriating Petrarchs poetic promise that
someday a hero would return a long-dormant Roman virtue to Italy:
Virtue will take up arms against fury and make the battle short,
because the ancient valor in Italian hearts is not yet dead.78
Machiavellis usurpation of Petrarchs exhortation to the
Italians to rise up masked his differences with both Cicero and
Petrarch. Machiavellis refutation of the mentors of Renaissance
humanism meant, of course, that Machiavelli ran headlong against the
prevailing philosophy of the time; he was an innovator, many have
said a revolutionary. His perspective can be summed up, as Vickie B.
Sullivan says: human beings need to reorient themselves in the world;
73
74
75
76
77
78
MANSFIELD, supra note 60, at 31.

PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER, RENAISSANCE THOUGHT AND ITS SOURCES 46
(Michael Mooney ed., Columbia University Press 1979).
MANSFIELD, supra note 60, at 31-36.
Id. at 34.
St. Augustine had memorialized this early Christian disdain for things of
this world. Boethius had added Platonic and Stoic overtones to a philosophy
that said transient temporal affairs mattered little. Dante captured the
essence of the Middle Ages in the Divine Comedy, where he puts to poetry
the quest for eternal heavenly bliss.
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 26 (the Italian reads: Virt contro a
furore / prender larmi; e fia combatter corto, / che lantico valore / nelli
italici cor non ancor morto.).
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they need to reject the morality that they have inherited from
Christianity and from classical philosophy by unleashing the passions
in the service of unlimitedand armedacquisition.79
Machiavelli directly challenged the classic thinking that the
drive to gain worldly goods, fame, and glory was immoral and
unnatural; that property acquisitions must be limited by virtue, both in
manner and amount. Justice required that goods be distributed fairly;
Christian charity and love of God and neighbor commanded that one
correct any injustice of distribution by giving away any surplus wealth.
Classic learning and Christianity encouraged poverty in fact and in
spirit.80 Machiavelli had a diametrically opposite view.
Much of Machiavellis writing points to politics and life in
general as a zero sum game.81 That is, there is so little wealth, so
little political power, and so few goods to be had, that there is not
enough for everyone. The supply of lifes necessities is limited. It is
only natural for a person to take the means necessary for survival.
There are victors and victims; what one gains, the other loses. One has
to figure out when, where, and how to grab goods and power, and then
determine how to hold on to them, whether for ones own personal
gain and glory, or for the benefit of the state.
Once again inverting accepted notions, Machiavelli viewed
anyone who limits acquisition in the name of virtue as foolish, since
one can trust neither in nature nor in God to provide ones necessit
(necessities). 82 Trust, that nave, childish notion that someone or
something else will provide, is not a desirable quality. Neither is
leisure that does not lead to Machiavellian virt; it corrupts it. 83 In
Discourse on Livy, he wrote, I say that those are called gentlemen
79
80
81
82
83
VICKIE B. SULLIVAN, THE COMEDY AND TRAGEDY OF MACHIAVELLI xiii

(Vickie B. Sullivan ed., Yale University Press 2000).
Quinto Marini, Religione e letteratura in volgare nella Liguria del
Trecento, in XXXVIII STUDI MEDIEVALI 203-41 (1997) (St. Francis of Assisi
is said to have disliked ants because in the summer they stored up food for
the winter. On the other hand, he was fond of birds, which, trusting in
Gods bounty, lived day to day).
PITKIN, supra note 14, at 49.
REBHORN, FOXES AND LIONS: MACHIAVELLIS CONFIDENCE MAN 193-98
(Cornell University Press 1988).
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who live idly in abundance from the returns of their possessions . . .

are pernicious in every republic and every province.84 Much of the
blame for the lack of virt in Italy he laid directly on the effeminate
Christian religion that led Italians to a pathetic weakness that he said
arose from the cowardice of the men who have interpreted Christianity
according to indolence and not according to virt.85 Necessit and the
consequent struggle to satisfy it are concepts that underlie
Machiavellis view of the world. For Machiavelli, necessit is that
which is necessary for human survival, and being necessary for
survival; acquisition of lifes essentials is not only natural and
permissible, but also imperative. The need to survive, coupled with the
uncertainty of not knowing when we have enough, creates a
continuous struggle to grab ones share, to keep acquiring in order to
insure survival. Once acquired, a person with virt will take all
effective means to protect it from others who would commandeer it for
their own use. Self-reliance and self-love is the cause of human
strength and greatness, not trust in providence or self-denial.86
84
85
86
MANSFIELD, supra note 71, at 111 (the Italian reads: dico che gentiluomini
sono chiamati quelli che oziosi vivono delle rendite delle loro possessioni . .
. sono perniziosi in ogni republica ed in ogni provincia.).
Id. at 131-32 (Machiavelli writes of Christianity: Our religion has glorified
humble and contemplative more than active men . . . if our religion asks that
you have strength in yourself, it wishes you to be capable more of suffering
than of doing something strong. This mode of life thus seems to have
rendered the world weak and given it in prey to criminal men, who can
manage it securely, seeing that the collectivity of men, so as to go to
paradise, think more of enduring their beatings than avenging them. And
although the world appears to be made effeminate and heaven disarmed, it
arises without doubt more from the cowardice of the men who have
interpreted our religion according to idleness and not according to virtue.
The Italian reads: La nostra religione ha glorificato pi gli uomini umili e
contemplative che gli attivi . . . e se la religione nostra richiede che tu abbi
in te fortezza, vuole che tu sia atto a parire pi che a fare una cosa forte.
Questo modo di vivere adunque pare che abbi renduto il mondo debole e
datolo in preda agli uomini scelerati, I quali sicuramente lo possono
neggiare, veggendo come luniversit degli uomini, per andarne in
paradiso, pensa pi a sopportare le sue battiture che a vendicarle. E
bench paia che si sia effeminato il mondo e disarmato il cielo, nasce pi
sanza dubbio della vilt degli uomini, che hanno interpretato la nostra
religione secondo lozio, e non secondo la virt.).
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39
This necessit was seen as the primary drive underlying virt,

and it is virt, which moves the knowing person to action, to
acquisition, and to the satisfaction of ones desires and needs. In
exercising virt in a zero-sum game, ones gain is necessarily
anothers loss. And so go the rules of nature. The knowledgeable,
grownup furbo sees the effective truth and consequently takes what is
available by wit and energy; the ignorant, infantile fesso blindly
suffers on account of gullibility and lethargy.
Machiavellis virt connotes passion and strength, particularly
in the acquisition of political power. Ciceros manliness was a
stouthearted virtuous patriotism that would defend the fatherland with
every sacrifice. Cicero understood the end of political action to be
stasis, rest, and harmony. Machiavelli saw stasis as indolence. He
perceived the need for continual struggle in order to preserve the
security of person and state. 87 He believed that the private drive to
acquire goods and the political quest to gain power and territory as
entirely natural. In The Prince, he writes of King Louis quest for
expansion into Italian territory, noting that the wish to acquire is in
truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can,
and for this they will be praised not blamed.88
The first lawgiver of a state has to be a selfish and ravenous
dog that wants glory by forcing all the other would-be usurpers to obey
the laws and be good.89 The need for constant agitation and acquisition
is antithetical to Cicero and the classic thinkers, who see equilibrium,
not strife, as the goal for the individual and the state. Machiavellis
political works are primarily directed to a discussion of virt as it
affects the successes and failures of political enterprises. In his view,
humans are by nature materialistic beings that seek to get a hold of
what they wantmaterial goods, wealth, land, power, and sex.90 Virt
includes a persons courage, energy, and perseverance to size up and
satisfy ones wants and desires. Machiavellis discussions of virt,
87
88
89
90
Barlow, supra note 55, at 635.

MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 3 (the Italian reads: cosa veramente
molto naturale e ordinaria desiderare di acquistare; e sempre quando gli
uomini lo fanno che possono, ne saranno laudati, e non biasimati.).
REBHORN, supra note 83, at 94.
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within or outside of a political context, revolved around the theme of

what it means to be a real man, a person of action, not inaction; a
person of aggression and insatiability, not contemplation and
satisfaction.
Machiavelli had no use for the abstractions of philosophy. He
was an action oriented person with a specific view of political life:
victory goes to the swift, the strong, and the sometime ruthless. He
gave primacy to his experience and personal observation of actual
events, as informed by his analysis of the effective historical deeds of
past greats. His sense of reality impelled Machiavelli to attack the
classical and medieval thought that had emphasized the abstract at the
expense of the real and the material. In The Prince, he wrote:
For many Republics and Princedoms have been
imagined that were never seen or known to exist
in reality. And the manner in which we live, and
that in which we ought to live, are things so
wide asunder, that he who quits the one to
betake himself to the other is more likely to
destroy than to save himself.91
Ezio Raimondi has written that after Machiavelli, politics is a
direct confrontation with events; it does not deal with the imagined.
What is, not what should be, is important.92 Observing and analyzing
concrete experience, not mental gymnastics, leads alla verit
effettuale (to the effectual truth). La verit effettuale leads a prince to
success. In the introduction to The Prince, Machiavelli offers Lorenzo
de Medici his ideas on political action acquired through long
experience of contemporary affairs and extended reading in
antiquity.93 De Sanctis has written that the scientific foundation of
this [Machiavellis] world is the effectual thing; the thing as proved
91
92
93
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 53 (the Italian reads: E molti si sono

immaginati repubbliche e principati che non si sono mai visti n conosciuti
essere in vero; perch elli tanto discosto da come si vive a come si
doverrebbe vivere, che colui che lascia quello che si fa per quello che si
doverrebbe fare, impara pi tosto la ruina che la persavazione sua.).
EZIO RAIMONDI, LETTERATURA E IDENTITA NAZIONALE 20 (Bruno
Mondadori ed. 1998).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Dedication.
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by experience and observation.94 Machiavelli himself used the phrase

when, in The Prince, he turned his attention to the modes and
governments of a prince.95 Referring to the various manuals of advice
to princes written by contemporary and earlier humanists, he said he
proposed to write something useful, that it is better to go after the
real truth (la verit effettuale) than to repeat the fantasies put out by
others. 96 This effective truth cuts through the numbing effect of
mystique and preconception and bores down to the essential reality, to
the causative reasons why human conduct and political maneuverings
have worked in the past and will work in the future. 97 La verit
effettuale is based on a hard realism that leaves no place for romantic
(read, abstract philosophical and theological) notions. Machiavellis
revolutionary insistence was that politics and leadership must be based
on material reality, rather than intellectual or religious rumination.
This insight announced a new science of humanity, one that examines
humans, not as they might or should be, but as they really are.98
His virt is revolutionary, for his concept includes what others
considered vicestrickery and deceit. Hanna Pitkin looks at the virt
of Machiavellis real man from three perspectives:
1. The virt of the fox, a cunning and manipulative
political agent.
2. The virt of the heroic founder of a state, such
as Brutus.
3. The virt of the productive, patriotic citizen
living in a successful republic.
Machiavelli considered astuteness and cleverness a sine qua
non for a prince who wishes to exercise public rule with authority. In
94
95
96
97
98
FRANCESCO DE SANCTIS, HISTORY OF ITALIAN LITERATURE 585 (Joan

Redfern trans., Basic Books, Inc. 1931).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 15 (the Italian reads: e modi e
governi di uno principe.).
Id.
MANSFIELD, supra note 71, at 7-9 (Machiavelli is insistent that the past
actions of great persons can be studied and used as a model for the knowing
leader who wishes to succeed in the political arena).
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addition, Machiavelli said, it is just as necessary for any person who

wishes to satisfy private needs and desires. Pitkin says that
Machiavellis idea of foxiness is intrinsically linked to his broader
concept of la verit effettuale (the effective truth). When young, one
is told and believes in all kinds of fairy tales. Growing up means
finding out how things really work and giving up childish illusions . . .
Illusions make one vulnerable, infantile, a fesso.99 In Dantes Divine
Comedy, unbaptized but innocent deceased infants are sent to limbo,
the same limbo where Machiavelli consigned the politically naive
Florentine leader Piero Soderini with the rest of the babies. To be a
political neophyte will cause the ruin of all who depend on you.100
An essential component of Machiavellis virt is cunning,
which can and does include fraud, deception, and treachery. 101
Machiavellis famous Chapter 18 of The Prince is entitled The Way
Princes Should Keep Their Word.102 In this chapter, Machiavelli said
that leaders need not keep their word if the necessity of maintaining a
secure state requires otherwise. In particular, he wrote, a prudent
prince neither can nor ought to keep his word when to keep it is hurtful
to him and the causes which led him to pledge it are removed.103
Ones self-interest is the guiding factor in determining the conduct of
the affairs of the state, not morality or accepted customs.
The element of foxiness is an essential ingredient of
Machiavellis concept of virt. Wayne Rebhorn writes that the word
virt sums up the qualities Machiavelli believes heroic
intelligence, foresight, and cunning. 104 De Sanctis, in his History of
Italian Literature, comments that Machiavellis theory of la verit
effettuale encompasses the concept that the means to anything must
be based on intelligence and on a calculation of the forces that move
99
100
101
102
103
104

Id. at 36-37.
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 18 (the Italian reads: In che modo e
principi abbisno a mantenere la fede.).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 60 (the Italian reads: Non pu per tanto
uno signore prudente, n debbe, osservare la fede, quando tale osservanzia
li torni contro e che sono spente le cagioni che la feciono promettere.).
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43
men. 105 Machiavelli finds virt at the intersection of la verit

effettuale and effectual action. Virt is found in a real man, and virt
encompasses the cunning of a fox. A real man, then, is a mature
person, a clever person, one who understands what is happening, and
knows how and when to take effective action.
Machiavelli advocated autonomy and independence for both
individuals and governments alike. Interconnectedness, dependence,
and unity were part of medieval thought. In Machiavellis day, the
process of displacing this conception was well along, being replaced
by the Renaissance notions of autonomy and the discovery of the
individual. But, the old concept was not altogether dead. Florence was
part medieval and part Renaissance. Machiavellis city understood
itself as taking part in the medieval hierarchical collegial sacred order,
with God at the top of the ladder, while at the same time being under
the influence of the mercantile mindset that prized individual
ingenuity. 106 To counteract this duality, Machiavelli changed the
model for his revitalized Florence from the initial Rome of Romulus
(divinely created) to the republican Rome of Brutus (man-made). This
widened the gap between the ideals of philosophy and religion, and
actual practice. The community and its laws came to be understood not
as institutions mandated by God or nature, but as created by humans.
Renaissance people felt they could have some control of their own
destiny, but in Italy, the long and agonizing period of European wars
and domination had encouraged dependence; Machiavelli despised this
state of affairs as a failure of Italian virt. Although one has the
potential to create ones own life, what does this mean if one is
without cease subjected to continual invasion, subjugation, and
emasculation? Machiavelli prescribed autonomy as the cure for
subjugation. The only free and autonomous citizens are the virtuous
105
106
DE SANCTIS, supra note 94, at 587.

In this construct, which pervaded medieval thought, every level of being
was subordinate to the superior strata. The ultimate level, the deity, was
pure being itself. The mineral world participated in that being to a very
limited extent. An artichoke was superior to a rock because it was a living
plant. A person was superior to an animal because the person had an eternal
soul. An angel trumped a human because the angel was living a purely
spiritual life, thus more closely imitating and reflecting God.
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who reside in a state that is armed and capable of maintaining its

independence without depending upon outside support.
Autonomy, holds Machiavelli, is intertwined with manhood;
dependence is for women, children and fools; for men it is despicably
dangerous. Intimately connected with a dependents lack of autonomy
is the trust that he or she must repose in others. Hanna Pitkin writes:
Trust, the intellectual form of dependence, is
also a sign of weakness and a cause of failure; strength
comes from doubt, skepticism, the refusal to be taken in
by appearances. Only a child or a fool trusts in the
conventional surface of things; it is always safer to
assume the worst.107
A trusting child, a silly woman, someone imposing trust
on others, all fall to ruin. Why? Machiavelli stated it directly
and simply: All men are evil, and cannot be trusted in the
slightest, for of men it may generally be affirmed that they are
thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger, greedy of
gain, devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon
them . . . . 108 One can trust only ones own arms: strength,
virt, autonomy. In his writing, Machiavelli aimed to instruct
those readers of his who comprehend that trust is a failing, not
a virtue. His approval of a mature persons cynicism and his
abhorrence of trust, influence his diagnoses and his
prescription for the ills of Italy. Machiavellis prince needs to
use every possible tool to succeed. Foxiness (astuteness) is an
essential instrument of policy and conduct. Of this, Machiavelli
was well aware. He lived and breathed in the air of trickery in
his Florence. Machiavelli was both an astute observer and
crafty practitioner of deception.109
The lessons tendered Lorenzo in The Prince were meant to
illustrate how a crafty political leader gains and maintains power. Foxy
deception is part of the process by which a politician governs. As
related in Chapter 7 of The Prince, Cesare Borgia appointed as the
107
108
109

MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 57.
This issue will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 5 of this article.
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45
governor of Cesena his henchman, Remiro de Orco, a stern and

prompt ruler, who being entrusted with the fullest powers . . . . 110
After Remirro had ruthlessly pacified the assigned territory, Cesare,
fearing that the mood of the occupied city of Cesena might turn ugly,
had Remirro assassinated and his body placed in the city square in two
pieces, . . . in order to purge the minds of the people and gain their
good-will, he sought to show them that any cruelty which had been
done had not originated with him, but in the harsh disposition of his
minister.111 The gory display had the desired shocking effect on the
populace, because, as Machiavelli writes, the barbarity of which
spectacle at once astounded and satisfied the populace. 112 The
deception practiced by Cesare on the citizens had a two-fold effect: he
consolidated his rule, and the people of Cesena felt secure when they
believed they were then freed from the oppression wrought by
Remirro. In fact, they only saw the appearancesthe illusionthat
Cesare meant to convey. Cesare made fools of the people through
actions that most would judge reprehensible; but, they were effective;
now the burghers of Cesena were dependent upon him and under his
control.
Like Boccaccios pranksters, Machiavellis prince dwells in
an amoral no-mans-land without ethical imperatives.113 This freedom
of choice between good and evil gives his prince the ability to create a
new order out of existing chaos, exemplified in the way Machiavelli
urges Lorenzo Medici in the last chapter of The Prince. Such a leader,
exercising the amoral astuteness that is part and parcel of
Machiavellis virt, can readily impose his will on the largely passive
populacethe pathetic, unseeing, and unknowing unwashed of the
world. Machiavellis prince consciously chooses to discard traditional
morality when its abandonment is advantageous. The people are
thereby made impotent. They are led to blindly adhere to moral
scruples out of rote habit, to their disadvantage; the subjects are no
110
111
112
113
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 27 (the Italian reads: uomo crudele ed

espedito, al quale dette plenissima potest.).
Id. (the Italian reads: volse mostrare che, se crudelt alcuna era seguita,
non era causata da lui ma dalla acerba natura del ministro.).
Id. (the Italian reads: la ferocit del quale spettaculo fece quelh populi in
uno tempo rimanere satisfatti e stupidi.).
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match for a morally nimble prince who manipulates them by playing

on their stultifying sense of goodness. The intellectual justification for
this radical departure from the classic and humanist philosophers is
based on Machiavellis belief in the thorough perfidy of humans.114 He
remarks in The Prince that for of men it may generally be affirmed
that they are thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger, greedy
of gain . . . . 115 In breaking from tradition and grasping la verit
effettuale, the political actor is liberated from its restraints.
Freed from any consideration, except the expedient, the prince,
like Cesare in Cesena, is free to use cruelty or piety as circumstances
dictate, caring more about creating fear than love. Machiavellis prince
with virt uses whatever means necessary to remain in control of the
situation.116 Therefore, after contemplating the question, Is it better to
be feared than loved?, he concludes it is better to be feared. Why?
Because men love at their own inclination, but can be made to fear at
the inclination of the prince; a shrewd prince will lay his foundation on
what is under his own control, not on what is controlled by others.
Nevertheless a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he
114
115
116
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS, PRAISE OF FOLLY 105-06 (Betty Radice trans.,

Penguin Books 1971) (humanists such as Erasmus continued to follow the
classic concept that a princes goodness was paramount).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 57 (the Italian reads: degli uomini si pu
dire questo generalmente: che siano ingrati, volubili, simulatori e
dissimulatori, fuggitori de pericoli, cupidi di guadagno.).
Id. at Ch. 8 (Machiavelli even includes murder and other nefarious vices in
virt when it is used to attain and keep a state. He writes: Yet it cannot be
called virtue [virt] to murder his fellow citizens, betray his friends, be
devoid of truth, pity, or religion; a man may get power by means like these,
but not glory. If we consider simply the courage [virt] of Agathocles in
facing and escaping from dangers, and the greatness of his soul in
sustaining and overcoming adversity, it is hard to see why he should be
considered inferior to the greatness of captains. The Italian reads: Non si
pu ancora chiamare virt ammazzare e suoi cittadini, tradire gli amici,
essere sanza fede, sanza pieta, sanza religione e quail modi possono fare
acquistare imperio, ma non gloria. Perch, se si considerrassi la virt di
Agotocle nello entrare e uscire de pericoli e la grandezza dello anima suo
nel sopportare e superarre le cose averse, non si vede perch egli abbai a
essere indicato inferiore a qualunque eeccellentissimo capitano.).
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47
do not win love he may escape hate.117 The Machiavellian prince, the
one who knows that humans are stingy (in Italian, misero)that is,
they wish to accumulate and hold on to boundless quantities of
material goods (necessit)is advised to:
[N]ot meddle with the property or with the women of
his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to put any
to death, he should do so only when there is manifest
cause or reasonable justification. But, above all, he
must abstain from the property of others. For men will
sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of
their patrimony.118
It is the insight of a crafty, unscrupulous leader that allows the
prince to comprehend that a subjects property is sacrosanct. For
Machiavelli, a foolish leader does not possess the virt of an energetic
leader. He is like a child. When one is young, one is told and believes
in all kinds of tales; growing up means giving them up.119 Holding
onto illusions makes one childish and gullible (one might add that
when a child becomes an adolescent, his immaturity is enriched with
idealism, which Machiavelli also condemns). A prince is a mature,
knowing adult (a realist), a person with virt, not an immature child
(idealist), infused with illusion and utopianism. Machiavellis prince,
an astute realist, has no use for idle speculation and fantasies. Those
living in an unperceiving world of dreams are constantly in danger of
being ensnared. In the political sphere, to be unknowing is to consign
yourself and those who depend upon you to doom. 120 Machiavelli
wrote to Lorenzo Medici:
117
118
119
120
Id. at Ch. 17 (the Italian reads: amando li uomini a posta loro e temendo a
posta del principe, debbe uno principe savio fondarsi in su quello che suo,
non in su quello che daltri: debbe solamente ingegnarsi di fuggire lo
odio.).
Id. (the Italian reads: astenga dalla roba de sua cittadini e de sua sudditi,
e dalle donne loro . . . ma sopra tutto, astenersi dalla roba daltri; perch li
uomini sdimenticano pi presto la morte del padre che la perdita del
patrimonio.).
Id. at 36-37.
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Since it has been my intention to write something of use

to one who understands, it seemed to me that it would
be better to go direct to la verit effettuale rather than
imaginary ideas. Many have imagined republics that
never existed and princedoms never known or seen in
reality . . . . Because there is so much difference in how
we actually live and how we ought to live, he who
leaves behind that which we do for that which we ought
to do very quickly realizes his ruin rather than his
preservation.121
Machiavellis one who understands is the opposite of one
who does not see through the appearances of things to get to la verit
effettuale. The idealist, regardless of age, continues to see through the
immature eyes of a child, believing what the more perceptive realist
wishes him to believe. Maturity is a matter of insight and astute
intelligence; these qualities belong to someone who is able to avoid
others snares, while simultaneously scheming to realize the desired
end.
In Machiavellis view, in order to be successful, a prince must
be a realist, someone who is able to understand la verit effetuale of
political powerthe effective force that brings with it political power.
Unlike the governors praised by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine,
and Thomas Aquinas, the shrewd prince who desires to maintain his
position, [must] learn [] how to be other than good, and to use or not to
use his goodness as necessity requires.122
121
122
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at Ch. 15 (a natural assumption is that

Machiavelli included Platos Republic in his scathing criticism of utopias)
(the Italian reads: Ma sendo lintenzione mia stata scrivere cosa che sia
utile a chi la intende, mi parso pi conveniente andare dreto alla verit
effettuale della cosa che alla immaginazione di essa. E molti si sono
imaginati republiche e pricipati che non si sono mai visti n conosciuti in
vero essere. Perch gli tanto discosto come si vive a come si doverrebbe
vivere, che colui che lascia quello che si fa, per quello che si doverrebbe
fare, impara pi presto la ruina che la perservazione sua.).
Id. (the Italian reads: Onde necessario a uno principe, volendosi
mantenere, imparare a potere essere non buono, et usarlo e non usarlo
secondo la necessit.).
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49
Virtue is stood on its head. The classic ideal (effective) leader

practiced the accepted virtues known to paganism and Christianity
alikecompassion, justice, temperance, and the like. Machiavelli
instructs his virtuous prince to forget accepted morals and become
astute in order to preserve his Princedom, to act in opposition to good
faith, charity, humanity, and religion.123 La verit effettuale requires a
leader to do whatever is necessary to take and retain power, even to
resort to the cruelty of a Cesare Borgia when necessary to gain an
advantage. Machiavelli explains why some princes who use cruelty to
rise to power, keep their power, while others lose it:
I believe that it all depends on whether the
cruelty is used well or badly. Cruelty can be described
as well used (if it is permissible to say good words
about something evil in itself) when it is performed all
at once, for reasons of self-preservation; and when the
acts are not repeated after that, but rather are turned as
much as possible to the advantage of the subjects.124
A leaders primary obligation to her citizens is to provide
security. He emphasizes to his readers that:
A Prince should therefore disregard the reproach
of being thought cruel where it enables him to keep his
subjects united and obedient. For he who quells
disorder by a very few signal examples will in the end
be more merciful that he who from too great leniency
permits things to take their course and so to result in
rapine and bloodshed.125
123
124
125
Id. at 61 (the Italian reads: spesso necessitato, per mantenere lo stato,

operare contro alla fede, contro alla carita, contro alla umanit, contro
alla religione.).
Id. at Ch. 8 (the Italian reads: Bene usate si possono chiamare quellese
del male lecito dire beneche si fanno a uno tratto per la necessit dello
assicurarsi: e di poi non vi si insiste dentro, ma si convertono in pi utilit
de sudditi che si pu.).
Id. at Ch. 17 (the Italian reads: Debbe, per tanto, uno principe non si
curare della infamia di crudele, per tenere e sudditi sua uniti et in fede . . .
sar pi pietoso che quelli e quali per troppa pieta, lasciono seguire e
disordini, di che ne nasca occisioni o rapine.).
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One of Machiavellis model princes is the aforementioned

Cesare Borgia. He is praised for exceptional virt, cunning and
capable of putting malice and deception to good use. Cesares
shocking presentation of Remirro to the townsfolk of Cesena has
already been described. The Prince records, without condemnation,
other examples of Cesares audacity. He places the duke, in Wayne
Rebhorns words, in a zone beyond any simple moral judgment,
whether good or bad, making him a figure as fundamentally amoral as
the confidence men in La mandragola or as any of the beffatori
[tricksters] in the novella tradition that lies behind that play.126 As
reported by Machiavelli, Cesares father, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo
Borgia, 1431-1503), wished to grab as much of Italy for himself and
his family as possible.127 The father conferred a dukedom on the son
and supplied him with the funds to wage war, an art of which Cesare
was a master. The two struck up alliances with the French and the
Orsini, all to further their desire to dominate central Italy. Fearing
reliance on the others would prove fateful, Cesare first spurned the
Orsini and then decided to put no further trust in the French. 128
Machiavelli says Cesare then resorted to stratagem, and was so
well able to dissemble his designs, that the Orsini, through the
mediation of Signor Paolo [Orsini] (whom he failed not to secure by
every friendly attention, furnishing him with clothes, money, and
horses), were so won over . . . 129 Machiavelli writes that it was the
Orsinis simple-mindedness (simplicit), the sign of a fesso, which
impelled them to a meeting where Cesare had them all murdered. The
Orsini clans inability to see the reality of the situation (la verit
effettuale) led them to ruin. Machiavelli is more critical of the
simplicit of the Orsini band than he is of the deception and treachery
of Cesare. In fact, he praises this method by which Cesare Borgia
obtained territory and went on to govern it well. If one wonders how
126
127
128
129

Id. (the Italian reads: n si fidando di Francia.).
Id. at 26 (the Italian reads: si volse alli inganni; e seppe tanto dissimulare
lanimo suo, che li Orsini, mediante el signor Paulo, si reconciliorno seco;
con il quale el dogni ragione di offizio per assicurarlo, dandoli danari,
veste e cavalli.).
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well, one is advised to reread the story of Remirro. After reviewing

Cesares life of duplicity and perfidy, Machiavelli writes:
Taking all these actions of the Duke together, I can find
no fault with him; nay, it seems to me reasonable to put
him forward, as I have done, as a pattern for all such as
rise to power by good fortune and the help of others.
For with his great spirit and high aims he could not act
otherwise than he did, and nothing but the shortness of
his fathers life and his own illness prevented the
success of his designs.130
Following this passage, he goes on to say that whoever,
therefore, on entering a new Princedom, judges it necessary to rid
himself of enemies, to conciliate friends, to prevail by force or fraud,
to make himself feared yet not hated by his subjects . . . can find no
brighter example than in the actions of this Prince. 131 Machiavelli
then spurned the ideal for the real. He advocated efficacy, not moral
rigor. He saw no conflict between an effective amoral leader and a
virtuous person. Life was not for the faint of heart. He who succeeded
was the one who saw the world for what it wasa cruel, savage place
where the lion dominates and the fox perpetuates. Keeping ones
words, respecting the rights of others, and conciliation were not the
ways of effective leadership. As pointed out above, the academic and
practicing fields of international relations and international law
overlap.132
In international relations, realists such as Morgenthau, Waltz,
and Kissinger predominate, following the spirit, if not the letter of,
Machiavelli. The international relations realists reflect Machiavellis
130
131
132
Id. at 29 (the Italian reads: Raccolte io adunque tutte le azioni del duca,
non saprei riprenderlo; anzi mi pare, come ho fatto, di preporlo imitabile a
tutti coloro che per fortuna e con l'arme d'altri sono ascesi allo imperio.
Perch lui avendo l'animo grande e la sua intenzione alta, non si poteva
governare altrimenti.).
Id. (the Italian reads: Chi, adunque, iudica necessario nel suo principato
nuovo assicurarsi de' nimici, guadagnarsi delli amici, vincere o per forza o
per fraude . . . non pu trovare pi freschi esempli che le azioni di
costui.).
See the discussion in Chapter One of this paper.
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view of conflict, strife, and even occasional warfare as a part of the

international landscape. States observe international law when it is to
their advantage. That it often is advantageous to be in legal compliance
does not mean to the realists that the law is what compels adherence.
Like the Athenians described by Thucydides, they say that the
powerful do what they wish with the weak, without seeking
permission. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush have taken that course;
the former did so successfully against Serbia and the latter much less
successfully in Iraq.
International lawyers and scholars, most of whom are idealists
(although they claim to be the real realists),133 agree with Henkin that
states almost always honor almost all legal obligations, which, they
assert, proves that international law has a large measure of compulsion
attached to it. Realists might agree with the degree of observance of
the law, but certainly not the reasons for it. For realists, adherence is a
matter of practicality. Adhering to World Trade Organization (WTO)
principles advances the economies of the observant state. However,
when it appears advantageous to the authorities to breach international
agreements (for instance, provide illicit financial support to farmers),
the state will follow the route that appears most advantageous
breach.
133
See Jonathan D. Greenberg, Does Power Trump Law?, 55 STAN. L. REV.

1789-1820 (2003) (in this paper, I have adhered to the traditional definitions
of realists and idealists).
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53
CHAPTER FIVE
MACHIAVELLIS LIFE, TIMES, AND POLITICS
Machiavellis importance in the field of international law is
often underestimated. Arthur Nussbaum comments:
Machiavellis ideas may be linked to
international law in so far as his perfect and cynical
disregard of any political morality (not of morality in
general) contrasted sharply with, and formed an
extreme reaction to, the scholastic teachings which
purported to subordinate the whole province of politics
and especially the relations among rulers to the
demands of moral theology.134
It is essential, then, for our purposes, to explore Machiavellis
life, contemporary events, and his political experience.
Niccol Machiavellis public career began on May 24, 1498,
when he was nominated to be secretary of the Second Chancery of the
Florentine Republic, four days after the public execution of the
firebrand Franciscan friar, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498). The
Second Chancery handled foreign affairs and relations with Florences
dominions. 135 Florence had hailed Savonarola as a republican hero
only four years earlier when he negotiated a treaty with Charles VIII
(1470-1498) of France that had spared Florence from a sacking. Piero
Medici (1416-1469) had invited the French king into Italy as his
protector, but when Piero surrendered six key Florentine fortresses to
Charles without a shot being fired, the enraged Florentines drove Piero
and his supporters into exile, ending sixty years of Medici rule.
Charles successful invasion profoundly affected the balance of power
in Italy. 136 Prior to Charles entry, the five major Italian powers
Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, and the Holy Seehad achieved a
134
135
136

VIROLI, supra note 72, at 28.
Id. at 19.
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balance of power whereby no single state could dominate the others,

keeping Italy perpetually divided. Alliances of expediency were
furtively formed and then surreptitiously unraveled as the Italian
powers took turns teaming with each other to block the others
ambitions. The events of 1494 introduced centuries of foreign invasion
and subjugation, with the French, Spanish, Germans, and Austrians
each taking their turns at despoiling the peninsula. The city-states had
neither the resources nor passion to defend themselves.
Machiavelli undoubtedly had witnessed the French entry into
Florence when Charles emissaries went door-to-door marking the
properties that would house the conquering army. It was a sad day for
Niccol. For a fiery Florentine patriot like Machiavelli, this
humiliation was a never-ending wound; the weakness of Italy had been
exposed for all to see. As he later wrote, Charles the King of France
was enabled to seize Italy with sticks of chalk.137 His work in the
Florentine government and his writing were profoundly affected by
Italian military and political impotency and the struggles he witnessed.
He was enmeshed in social, political, and religious changes that were
shaking the very foundations of Europe. Arthur Nussbaum writes:
From the political point of view the tremendous
upheaval that brought the transition from the Middle
Ages to modern times is marked predominately by the
Reformation . . . . The ensuing religious wars further
weakened the power of the Empire . . . this evolution
favored the rise of national states, especially of France,
England, and Spain.138
Machiavelli was confirmed to his chancery position in the new
republican government in June of 1498. The Italian Renaissance was
at its peak. Roman and Greek literature, art, and philosophy were
rediscovered. Western civilization was reborn and enlightened, and the
center of the intellectual conflagration was Italy, particularly Florence
and Rome. To his dismay, Machiavelli was witness to the dimming of
this illumination as the energies and resources that had poured into the
137
138
Id. at 22 (the comment refers to the actions of the French who marked with
chalk the Florentine homes that were commandeered for use by the French).
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55
renewal of civilization were turned to resisting or appeasing foreign

invaders.
Despite the artistic and intellectual renaissance occurring
throughout Italy, the relatively small and thoroughly disunited Italian
states could not fend off the wave of foreign intrusions. In this
maelstrom, Machiavelli conducted his career as a diplomat and
adviser. He was sent on missions to Catherine Sforza (1499), to France
(1500, 1510, 1511), to the German emperor (1507, 1509), to Rome
(1503, 1506), to Cesare Borgia (1502), and to lesser missions in
Perugia, Lucca, and Siena. His assignment was to observe and to
analyze, to determine the state of affairs, and to divine the intentions of
those leaders he visited, and then to report all this back to Florence.139
His observations, experiences, and deductions are recorded in his
dispatches and monographs that presage the brilliant insights,
inferences, and conclusions which he developed in his later historical,
literary, and political works.
Spurred by the bellicose Pope Julius II (Giuliano Della Rovere,
1443-1513), the Spanish army in 1512 encamped outside Florence,
and tendered an ultimatum to an overmatched Florence: either expel
the government of gonfalonier Piero Soderini and allow the Medici to
return, or face devastation. Soderini made an impassioned plea to save
the republic. The Florentines chose to save their necks and property
and capitulated, effectively bringing to an end the republican
experiment in Florence. 140 Machiavellis services were no longer
needed, and he was driven from the Palazzo Vecchio, fined, and
banished to his country property outside Florence.
Machiavelli referred his friend, Francesco Vettori, to his book,
De Principatibus (The Prince), which discussed the definition of
princedoms, how they are acquired, retained, and lost. He hoped that
Vettori might be able to present the book to Cardinal Giuliano Medici
(1479-1516), whom Machiavelli wrote should welcome it, especially
139
140
See generally JAMES B. ATKINSON & DAVID SICES, MACHIAVELLI AND HIS
FRIENDS: THEIR PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE (Northern Illinois University
Press 1996).
GIOVANNI SILVANO, MACHIAVELLI AND REPUBLICANISM 53 (Gisela Bock
et al. eds., Cambridge University Press 1990).
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since he was a new prince.141 Thus, in a few sentences, Machiavelli

introduced to his friend Vettori and the rest of us one of the most
influential volumes ever written. The Prince is the natural result of his
continuing interest in politics and foreign affairs. He recommended an
antidote for the threats and oppressions of foreign rulers. In the book,
he did not deal with the concepts offered by philosophy or religion;
rather, he elucidated how an Italian leader, by comprehending the
realities of attaining power, might rid the peninsula of its barbaric
usurpers and unite them as a strong and independent entity.142
As Harvey Mansfield has put it, the renown of The Prince is
precisely to have been the first and the best book to argue that politics
has and should have its own rules and should not accept rules of any
kind from any source where the object is not to win or prevail over
others.143
Several years after The Prince was written, Giuliano died.
Machiavelli changed the dedication in The Prince from Giuliano to
Leo Xs nephew, Lorenzo Medici, expressing the hope that Lorenzo
might attain that eminence which Fortune and your own merits
promise you. 144 Perhaps at this time, Machiavelli added the final
chapter to The Prince, in which he places on the Medici his great
expectations on their illustrious house, with the hope that the new
prince, Lorenzo, will remove a stench from the Italian air, because
this barbarian stinks in all nostrils.145
Fortunately for Machiavelli, new interests began to occupy his
time. Machiavelli was the senior member of an intellectual group that
came to the Oricellari Gardens in Florence to discuss politics and
military techniques. The young aristocrats in attendance were being
instructed by Machiavelli to attain the greatness that his status and
poverty denied him. 146 He finished another great political treatise,
141
142
143
144
145
146
ATKINSON & SICES, supra note 139, at 264.

MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 273 (quoting Francis Bacon in the
Marginalia).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 6 (the Italian reads: che lei pervenga a
quella grandezza che la fortuna e le altre sua qualit li promettano.).
Id. at 90 (the Italian reads: A ognuno puzza questo barbaro dominio.).
VIROLI, supra note 72, at 185-86.
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57
Discourses on Livy, 147 on which he had labored for years. In it,

Machiavelli returns to a study of ancient virtue, meaning Rome and its
republics virt, pretending to explain Livys history of Rome, but in
fact usurping and transforming Livys material into a rhetorical
argument for Machiavellis new order. The Prince is intended to
advise a political actor how to obtain power, while Discourses on Livy
instructs how to establish and preserve an enduring republic. In this
latter work, Machiavelli argues that the ancients were strong and the
moderns weak. Christian attitudes of meekness and humility had
subverted the virtuosity of heroes into the effeminacy of his fellow
Italians.148
Machiavelli was a prodigious thinker and a prolific writer. The
Machiavelli canon includes serious work, such as The Art of War,
comedy such as Mandragola, Belfagor and Clizia, and numerous
letters, dispatches, and diplomatic reports. All of these, even the
literary works, contain insights into his mind and thoughts. In the
introduction to The Prince, he offered up his compilation of the
knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired in the course of a
long experience of modern affairs and a continual study of
antiquity.149 Like Aristotle, Machiavelli claimed to be an observer of
human actions and claimed to extract from his observations the truth
of the matter studied. The difference: Machiavellis observations led
him to conclusions opposite those of Aristotle.
147
148
149
See MANSFIELD, supra note 71 (for the English translations used in this
paper); see NICCOL MACHIAVELLI, DISCORSI SOPRA LA PRIMA DECA DI
TITO LIVIO, IN OPERE (Corrado Vivanti ed., Einaudi-Gallimard 1997) (for
the Italian used in this paper).
See LUIGI BARZINI, THE ITALIANS xiii (Atheneum Publishers 1964) (Luigi
Barzini continues the discourse centuries later: This is why the riddle
which fascinated Machiavelli is still endlessly debated amongst us: why did
we not achieve national unity and a centralized government when other
European nations did? Id.).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 5 (the Italian reads: cognizione delle
azioni degli uomini grandi; imparata da me con una lunga sperienza delle
cose moderne ed una continua lezione delle antiche.).
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In the earlier Middle Ages, often bishops were also civil rulers,
so that there was convergence between civil and religious authority.150
Unlike most of the rest of Europe, Florence and the rest of northern
Italy were not feudal. They were more secular and maintained greater
contact with antiquity and the secular culture that was inherited from
the Romans. 151 Northern and north-central Italians established
independent communes that were more or less free; structures that
grew out of and enhanced the flourishing trade and commerce that
supported their prosperous and growing economies. 152 While not
perfect republics, the communes did imbue their citizens with a desire
to have a voice in a government that was based on the consent of the
governed.153
The one hundred years between 1150 and 1250 saw an
explosion in the population and wealth of Florence. The mercantile
trade centered in the cities spurred the power and prosperity of the
communes that were found everywhere in north and central Italy. The
humble and the powerful, day laborers and master craftsmen, servants
and financiers, all migrated into the cities, creating a more democratic
mix of populace. Many communes, such as Florence, gained the right
not only to govern them, but took the opportunity to incorporate the
surrounding countryside into their expanding states.154 The peninsula
150
151
152
153
154
J.K. HYDE, SOCIETY AND POLITICS IN MEDIEVAL ITALY: THE EVOLUTION OF

CIVIL LIFE 1000-1350 43 (St. Martins Press 1973).
Id. at 5-8.
ROBERT D. PUTNAM, MAKING DEMOCRACY WORK: CIVIC TRADITIONS IN
MODERN ITALY 121-25 (Princeton University Press 1993); see KRISTELLER,
supra note 74, at 87; see also ELENA F. GUARINI, MACHIAVELLI AND THE
CRISIS OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS, MACHIAVELLI AND REPUBLICANISM 39
(Gisella Bock et al. eds., Cambridge University Press 1990) (Elena F.
Guarini stated that Machiavellis vision of politics was profoundly
influenced by the northern Italian commune tradition that promoted
independence and republicanism).
Edward Muir, The Sources of Civil Society in Italy, 29.3 J. INTERDISC. HIST.
379-406 (1999); see also Gene Brucker, Civic Traditions in Premodern
Italy, 29.3 J. INTERDISC. HIST. 357-77 (1999) (Gene Brucker has written that
the republican traditions established in the early communes were less than
absolute; for instance, personal rights and liberty were severely limited by
governmental authority).
CHRIS WICKHAM, COMMUNITY AND CLIENTELE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY
TUSCANY 13 (Clarendon Press 1998).
2009-2010]
59
was not united under a single regime; it was composed of city-states,

church lands, and princedoms of varying sizes and strength. No one
entity had the wherewithal to consolidate power. Medieval and
Renaissance Italy can be seen as a culture, but not as a state or unified
political entity.
The height of the growth of Florence and the other city-states
was from 1250 to about 1325. By then, the size of cities had reached
its zenith and the communes had expanded their economy to provide
the inhabitants with more and more goods and services. Their citizens
had grown rich.
The substantial and ongoing social and economic changes of a
hundred years caused turmoil, which in turn produced a need for a new
civic morality to prevent the new society from tearing itself apart.155
Universities sprang up in the principal Italian cities to supply lawyers
and politicians to manage the new order. A renewed interest in
Justinian law and Ciceronian rhetoric spurred interest in Roman
learning and civilization. Humanists took up Latin learning and
infused it.
Unsurprisingly, the literary tradition of Renaissance Italy and
Florence that profoundly influence Machiavelli followed the preceding
political and cultural progression. In Machiavellis day, Florence had
lost whatever stable moral compass it had. Trickery in public and
private life had replaced a great part of the characteristics that had
been inherited from western culture, that tradition based on Greek,
Roman, and Christian antecedents. This was reflected not only in
Machiavellis writings, but also in those of his predecessors.
Machiavelli himself was a student and ardent admirer of the
Roman culture, which had incorporated Greek philosophy and
literature.156 Perhaps the first trickster recorded in western European
155
156
HYDE, supra note 150, at 83.

See P. E. EASTERLING & B. M. W. KNOX, GREEK DRAMA 103 (Cambridge
University Press 1989) (nowhere was this truer than in Roman comedy,
which closely imitated the Greek. Greek comedy had focused on the social
and economic issues of the day, but invariably upheld the traditional mores;
trickery does not appear to have played much of a part in Greek comedy);
see also GEORGE F. DUCKWORTH, THE NATURE OF ROMAN COMEDY 393-94
(Princeton University Press 1952) (Roman comedy in many ways closely
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literature is the Greek hero Odysseus, whose heroics are chronicled in

the Odyssey and later in the Aeneid, with which Machiavelli was very
familiar. Greek and Roman literature, while including tricksters, had
the effect of supporting the established social order. For instance,
while Homer portrayed Odysseus as tricky, his trickiness was heroic;
Odysseus used his sophisticated wit and ingenuity to trick and defeat
brutish hostile forces. Likewise, the denouement of Roman literature,
even comedy, supported the prevailing society and customs.
As Christian religiosity took hold, attitudes toward deception
changed. The medieval mindset did not appreciate the ruses that
gained Odysseus his fame. In fact, Dante, one of its chief apologists,
placed Odysseus in hell with other deceivers. There is no doubt that
this disapproving attitude changed dramatically in the two centuries
from Dantes Commedia to Machiavellis Principe, a shift in outlook
that was narrated in the literature. The link from one era to another was
forged by a Florentine writer, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375).
Boccaccios The Decameron followed in the novelliere (story
teller) tradition with which Boccaccio was intimately familiar. Some
of Boccaccios tales were new, but most of them were not inventions;
they were a masterful rewriting of older tales taken from the medieval
stock of fables, the fabliaux. He brought to these old accounts variety,
passion, a unique rich style, and spicy commentary on contemporary
Florentine and Italian society. 157 He used light comedy mixed with
exquisite writing to make his pithy points. Although he may have
borrowed the story lines, his treatment of them was entirely his own.
Boccaccio took the original and the new and created a picture of the
living world of his society with all its good and evil traits. 158
Boccaccio subverted the accepted power structure, and he gave the old
157
158
imitated the Greek. But deception and trickery seemed to have been
incorporated into the Roman from indigenous southern Italian culture.
However, Roman comedy imparted moral lessons and upheld the virtuous
traits of honesty, loyalty, and nobility of character. The social order was
maintained).
Ugo Foscolo, Boccaccio, in THE DECAMERON 208-15 (Mark Musa and
Peter Bondanella trans., W. W. Norton and Co. 1977).
Francesco De Sanctis, Boccaccio and the Human Comedy, in THE
DECAMERON 222 (Mark Musa and Peter E. Bondanella trans., W. W.
Norton and Co. 1977).
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61
stultified social order no respect. For instance, in day 7, all the stories
are about wives pulling the wool over their husbands eyes, with
impunity.159 Thomas Bergin has written that one thing is certain:
[T]he world of the Decameron is no longer the world of
the High Middle Ages . . . . In such a society the knight
and the priest were supreme . . . [However] the citizens
of the Decameronian commonwealth are less concerned
with preparing for the world to come . . . than with
enjoying what the world of the living has to offer.160
In Boccaccios work, saints are humbled and sinners exalted.
The Decameron marked a huge shift in the character of Italian culture,
demarcating a movement from the theocentric to the
anthropocentric.161 The times were changing from the stale idealism of
the past to a new world founded on a fresh sense of reality. At the
same time, society was moving forward, literature was traveling a
parallel path, shifting from allegorical poetry to down-to-earth
narrative, with its adventures, festivals, descriptions, pleasures and its
malice.162 The high priest of medieval literature was Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321), who echoed the scholastic philosophy and theology of
St. Thomas Aquinas. Illicit lovers Dante placed in Hell. Boccaccio
inverted the moral lessons of Dante and extolled, rather than
condemned, his lovers. What Dante saw as immorality, Boccaccio saw
as the freedom to live ones own life. 163 While Dante demonized
Odysseus for his deception, Boccaccio applauded his characters that
used trickery as an effective weapon to satisfy their desires.
Written some fifty years after the Divine Comedy, Boccaccios
novelle must have shaken Dante in paradise; they certainly created
lasting tremors on earth. In The Decameron, the medieval sense of sin
is entirely absent from its ribald tales. The aristocratic young revelers
159
160
161
162
163
Albert R. Ascoli, Pyrrhus Rules: Playing with Power from Boccaccio to

Machiavelli, 114.1 MLN 17-18 (1999).
Thomas Bergin, An Introduction to Boccaccio, in THE DECAMERON 163-64
(Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella trans., W. W. Norton & Company 1977).
De Sanctis, supra note 158, at 223.
Id. at 221.
Stelio Cro, The Masks of a Trickster: A New Hero(ine) for a New Age, 16
CAN. J. ITALIAN STUD. 20 (1993).
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recount their stories in the relaxed naturalness of the Florentine

countryside, without remorse or embarrassment. Gone, too, from its
pages is any sense of divine protection or providence over human
affairs. Humans are constrained to deal with the world on their own, as
it is, and to make the best of it. Human ingenuity and wit, not prayers
and petitions to the Almighty, are the weapons of choice against the
onslaughts of fortune. The transcendental ideals of the High Middle
Ages totally fade away in The Decameron and are replaced by the
material values of the mid-fourteenth century.164 On a moral level, De
Sanctis says of this era that a weakness and servility of character
developed that became predominate in society that manifested itself
strongly. Cynicism became a part of everyday life.165 Gone was the
Code of Chivalry; it was replaced with the new code of the Italian
middle classskeptical, intelligent, and positivethat sought its own
best interests in a world full of promising possibilities.166
While Italian society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
was in some ways clinging to the past traditions of spirituality, the
ethics of the rapidly ascending merchant class burrowed into everyday
life and undermined the existing order. For the rich, and the soon-to-be
rich, profit was the goal and materialism became the result. While
paying lip service to tradition, these movers and shakers were inwardly
adopting new morals. Heavenly rewards were subordinated to earthly
acquisitions. This attitude filtered through to the rest of society, and
suspicion and mistrust became the order of the day. In the midst of the
decline of medieval values and outlooks, Boccaccio took up this new
attitude of cynicism with brio, chronicling the foibles of an evolving,
less morally correct, society with stinging prose. Previously, immoral
shrewdness was infiltrating the society and becoming accepted, and
this was reflected in the literature and magnified by the emphasis
placed on it by Boccaccio.
On the subject of merchants and their conduct, Thomas Bergin
has written, Vittore Branca calls [The Decameron] the epic of the
merchant class, but that definition . . . has reference rather to its ethos
164
165
166
HYDE, supra note 150, at 165.

Id. at 593.
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63
than to the status of the characters that are set before us. 167 The
themes of the tales corresponded to the newly rising mercantile class
which first appeared in Boccaccios Italy.168 The Italy of Boccaccios
time was rapidly developing a new individualism that glorified earthly
fame as mans goal on earth, and minimized or even ignored the
heavenly glory of Dante and older generations. Boccaccio, in The
Decameron, and Machiavelli throughout his works, offered a vision of
human nature that differed sharply from the hierarchic, divinely
created order of Dante and the Middle Ages. 169 That structure was
vertical, reaching to the heavens, commencing with Satan in the
deepest reaches of hell and reaching its apex in the beatific vision in
Paradise. Life, whether one was a prince or pauper, was to be lived to
make one worthy of attaining eternal heavenly rewards. Boccaccio,
like Machiavelli, viewed life as horizontal, material, rooted to the
earth, never arising much above the human perspective. Life was to be
lustily lived and enjoyed here and now.
Machiavelli was the first to argue that political issues are
created by humans, and their solutions can be arrived at through
observation and reasoning. In order to do so, we must put aside the
idealistic, theological goals of the classic philosophers, from Socrates
to the Christians. Politics depend, not on Fortune, but on the necessary
actions taken by a resolute man. Thus, Machiavelli moved the
discussion from metaphysics to modern political science.
He saw the world through the prism of literature, both ancient
and Italian. His political vision was affected by the literature he read,
including Boccaccio, who was a precursor of Machiavelli. 170
Machiavelli took Boccaccios process one step further. He crafted a
virtuous political hero, his mythical prince, out of Boccaccios
mischievous prankster and its darker version, the trickster, in ways that
earlier generations had not. The trickster, when dealt with by
Machiavelli, turns into a more sinister agent. As Stelio Cro has written,
167
168
169
170
Bergin, supra note 160, at 161.

Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella, The Meaning of The Decameron, in THE
DECAMERON 323 (Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella trans., W. W. Norton
& Co. 1977).
Id. at 330-31.
REBHORN, supra note 83, at ix.
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the artful prankster of The Decameron metamorphoses into

Machiavellis man of the world, the individual gifted with a superior
ability to simulate, to mask his true feelings in order to achieve his
deception. 171 Wayne Rebhorn uses the term confidence man to
describe such a trickster. Machiavelli was drawn to the confidence
man to make sense of the world he lived in and to diagnose the
historical crisis of contemporary Italy, as well as to propose remedies
for it.172
Machiavellis macho man knows how to exercise his own
abilities to seize what he wants, without being dependent on others
largesse. In Greek and Roman times, the moving force of history was
the gods intrusion into human affairs; in the Middle Ages, it was
Gods providence. Machiavelli transformed the divine into the natural
and called it fortune. In the fullness of the Italian Renaissance,
Machiavelli proclaimed that the forces that rule humanity are found
inside, not outside, the person.173
The Italian Renaissance at the end of the fifteenth-century was
more cultural than scientific. The new order swept away old customs,
by audaciously mislabeling what was occurring and thus hiding its
reality from the main part of the people. Materialism was in
everything; in literature, in morals, in politics, in man, and in Nature.
But it was not called materialism; it was known as culture,
civilization, erudition, beauty, elegance,. . . 174 Political life in
Machiavellis Florence was schizophrenic, displaying a lip-service
devotion to outward religious and social customs, while in actuality
worshipping at the altar of materialism and earthly pleasure. Florence
was a city of piety and impiety. This dichotomy in society carried over
to political life, which was marked by its own divisions, bitter
conflicts, and constantly shifting alliances.175
171
172
173
174
175
Cro, supra note 163, at 7.

REBHORN, supra note 83, at 22-25.
DE SANCTIS, supra note 94, at 594-97 (in this regard, De Sanctis says that
Guicciardini extended Machiavellis notion of autonomy, extending its
power over history, asserting that acts that appeared to be due to chance and
uncontrolled were in fact determined by the inner motives of the actor[s]).
Id. at 462.
RIDOLFI, supra note 11, at 149.
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65
But by the end of the 15th century, Machiavelli astutely saw

corruption where others naively saw prosperous health. The corruption
was the Middle Ages in putrefaction, still surviving in forms and
institutions, but dead in the peoples consciousness. Francesco De
Sanctis has commented:
Though forms were elegant and decorous,
customs were licentious, and there was a spirit of
ridicule, vented chiefly on the priests, the friars, and the
lower classes. The bourgeois class was not in process of
formation but was a class with its history already
behind it; it was already dissolving, in spite of all the
wonderful flowering of culture and art, and in spite of
all the appearance of a prosperous and pleasant life.176
The Medici, beginning with Cosimo in 1434 and completed by
Lorenzo the Magnificent sixty years later, had consciously been
accomplices in the extended process of killing and burying the
medieval tradition. Roberto Ridolfi, in speaking of the time of
Lorenzo, wrote:
As freedom ebbed away, there went also the old way of
life of the city . . . surviving only in the regrets of those
who had enjoyed its last moments. The corruption of
morals, beginning with the corruption of political life . .
. was favoured by Lorenzo as an instrument of
government. These were precisely the years in which
the generation of Machiavelli was at an age most
susceptible to corruption.177
Machiavellis Florence was infused with a mercantile sense of
materialism, a breaking down of old civic solidarity, and a newfound
sense of individualism. Machiavelli wrote of the pervasive and
ceaseless machinations of his Florence, commenting that, the one
who could rend his fellows most cleverly, was deemed the wisest and
most estimable.178
176
177
178

RIDOLFI, supra note 11, at 8.
Id.
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Machiavelli, then, was influenced by the changing times and

the changing mores. The medieval way of thinking about politics and
political leaders was in many ways a Christianization of classical
political philosophy. Based on his experiences and observations,
Machiavelli concluded that the old way was not serving his state well.
Based on extensive reading and experience, he shocked his society and
formed his own view of the political world. His views were, and
continue to be, hotly debated and often condemned by some.
Machiavellian tremors continue to ripple through todays world,
affecting the way that international relations and international laws are
debated and practiced.
The originators of modern international law, commencing with
Grotius, did not wholeheartedly adopt the ways and views of
Machiavelli. To the contrary, many of them reacted to Machiavellis
strict separation of morality and politics. 179 Now follows an
examination of a few such early writers.
179
See MARTTI KOSKENNIEMI, THE GENTLE CIVILIZER OF NATIONS: THE RISE

AND FALL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1879-1960 353-55 (Cambridge
2009-2010]
67
CHAPTER SIX
GROTIUS AND THE EARLY MODERN
ADVOCATES OF THE NATURAL LAW THEORY
IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Dominican
Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546), the Jesuit Francisco Suarez (15481617) and Hugo de Groot (Grotius) (1583-1645) emphasized the moral
aspects of the law of nations and were part of the natural law
tradition.180 The Catholics, de Vitoria and Suarez, were adherents of
the Scholastic tradition promulgated by Aquinas and his followers.
Alberto Gentili (1552-1608) studied law at Perugia, became a
Protestant, and fled to England where he lectured on the Roman law at
Oxford. He wrote On the War of Law in 1598, which centered on the
concept of just war, separating international law from theology.
Gentilis natural law is not so much a self-contained body of moral
rules, evolved by scholastics, as it is simply what a sound mind teaches
us as being manifest.
Following Gentilis divorce of religion from natural law, the
pendulum swung to a more pragmatic approach. Emmerich de Vattel
(1714-1769) was among those jurists who started to consider the
positivist aspects of international law. These writers considered that
the way nations actually behaved, not the way they should behave,
defined international law. This chapter will briefly explore Grotius
role in initiating the modern natural law tradition. The next chapter
will briefly examine the early positivists, including Vattel.
According to David J. Bederman, Grotius has earned the title
father of international law. 181 Countering Machiavellis evil
principle of reason of state was one of Grotius primary objects in
his major opus, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625). From the middle of the
180
181
NUSSBAUM, supra note 41, at 58-59.

DAVID J. BEDERMAN, THE SPIRIT
University of Georgia Press 2002).
OF
INTERNATIONAL LAW 5 (The
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sixteenth century until the French Revolution, Machiavelliism

represented a powerful current in intellectual life. Late in the sixteenth
century, Machiavelliism was so greatly acknowledged as a distinct
attitude that the term Machiavellist appeared in print. The
condemnation of his writings wrapped around him a mystery that
fostered the belief that his teachings were applicable to any kind of
human activity, especially politics and the conduct of foreign affairs.
The common denominator of all Machiavellist attitudes was that
successful action was incompatible with behaving strictly according to
a fixed moral code. The view, which in the sixteenth century was
formed about Machiavellis prescriptions for human behavior, can be
summarized in the simple formula that he was considered to be a
teacher of evil. His message was that being evil was more useful and
efficient than being good. One might deceive, lie, commit crimes, even
murder, and start wars, if this helped to achieve a princes success. As
an advocate of such evil doctrines, Machiavelli moved close to the
Devil and an identification of Machiavelli with Satan was made early
on.182
The continental upheavals wrought by the Thirty Years War
(1618-48) ended in the Peace of Westphalia, which many writers cite
as the beginning of the modern era of International Law. The winners
were France, Netherlands and England. The losers were the Catholic
Church and Spain.183
In De Jure Belli ac Pacis, the Dutchman Grotius made
recourse to the natural law principle of good faith to counter the notion
that sovereignty had no bounds.184 He attempted to show that his view
of natural law could combat the moral skepticism of a Machiavellist,
through a rational settlement of disputes. Grotius writes that humans
are both social and competitive. The laws of nature show how we can
live together despite a tendency toward conflict. By observation and
reason, we can deduce those laws that establish international rights and
circumscribe the sovereign rights of an individual state. Thus, Grotius
182
183
184
See STRAUSS, supra note 6, at 11 (the ultimate modern critic of Machiavelli

is Leo Strauss, who was adamant that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil).
BEDERMAN, supra note 181, at 13.
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69
belief that all aspects of the relations (including belligerent ones)

between states (including non-Christian ones) are subject to law 185
The Machiavelli criticized by the anti-Machiavels was
definitely different than the optimistic and idealistic Grotius. Francis
Bacon wrote:
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and other writers
of that class who openly and unfeignedly declare or
describe what men do, and not what they ought to do . .
. for without this, virtue is open and unfenced; nay, a
virtuous and honest man can do no good upon those
that are wicked, to correct and reclaim them, without
first exploring all the depths and recesses of their
malice.186
At times, Machiavelli believed that doing wickedness was
necessary for success. It was abundantly clear to him that history
taught that the standard virtues needed to be breached in order for
success. He wrote, consider[ing] the whole matter, he will find that
there may be a line of conduct having the appearance of virtue, to
follow which would be his ruin, and that there may be another course
having the appearance of vice, by following which his safety and wellbeing are assured.187
Having laid waste to placing trust, Machiavelli turns to its
obversekeeping ones word. In examining Machiavellis position on
truth and keeping commitments, Machiavelli brings forth two model
princes: Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328) and Cesare Borgia (14761507). Each is praised for exceptional virt. He considered both crafty,
each capable of putting malice and deception to good use; neither was
a stranger to the practice of cruelty.
185
186
187
G. R. BERRIDGE ET AL., DIPLOMATIC THEORY FROM MACHIAVELLI TO

KISSINGER 53 (Palgrave 2001).
FRANCIS BACON, 5 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON:
TRANSLATIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS 17 (James Spedding et al.
eds., Routledge/Thoemmes Press 1996) (1887).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 54 (the Italian reads: perch, se si
considerer bene tutto, si trover qualche cosa che parr virt, e
seguendola sarebbe la rovina sua; e qualcun'altra che parr vizio, e
seguendola, ne riesce la sicurt ed il ben essere suo.).
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Castruccio was a leader of Florences western neighbor, Lucca.

Machiavelli memorialized him in a fictional biography, La Vita di
Castruccio Castracani (The Life of Castruccio Castracani).
Machiavellis Castruccio displays all of the qualities of a
Machiavellian hero: ambition, physical prowess, and virt, including
the craftiness that allowed him to outwit his enemies and gain
substantial territory. In one incident, Machiavelli approvingly
describes how Castruccio extended a truce to the Poggio family and
then deftly killed them all off as soon as their guard was relaxed; a
gory example of a crafty politician gulling a fool.188 Machiavelli does
not condemn such criminality; he simply describes it as Castruccios
means to an endthe consolidation of his official power so as to be
able to better rule his subjects and provide them with security.
Castruccio comprehended la verit effettuale (the reality of the
situation; the effectual truth). He understood that in order to unite his
country he needed to eliminate the Poggio family. Machiavelli
concludes that the false truce and subsequent murders were the most
efficacious way to be rid of the opposition and achieve Castruccios
political goals. The unity that followed resulted in greater peace and
security for the Lucchesi, an end that, for Machiavelli, justified the
means.
The Prince places Cesare Borgia, in Wayne Rebhorns words,
in a zone beyond any simple moral judgment, whether good or bad,
making him a figure as fundamentally amoral . . . 189As reported by
Machiavelli, Cesares father, Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia,
1431-1503), wished to grab as much of Italy for himself and his family
as possible.190 The father conferred a dukedom on the son and supplied
him with the funds to wage war, an art of which Cesare was a master.
The two struck up alliances with the French and the Orsini clan, all to
further their desire to dominate central Italy. Fearing reliance on the
others would prove fateful, Cesare first spurned the Orsini and then
decided to put no further trust in the French. 191 Machiavelli says
Cesare then:
188
189
190
191
REBHORN, supra note 83, at 89, 102.

Id. at 87.
Id. at 25 (the Italian reads: n si fidando di Francia.).
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71
[R]esorted to stratagem, and was so well able to

dissemble his designs, that the Orsini, through the
mediation of Signor Paolo (whom he failed not to
secure by every friendly attention, furnishing him with
clothes, money, and horses), were so won over as to be
drawn in their simplicity into his hands at Sinigaglia.192
Machiavelli writes that it was the Orsinis simple-mindedness
(simplicit), the sign of an utter fool (fesso), which impelled them to a
meeting where Cesare had them all murdered. The Orsini clans
inability to see the reality of the situation (la verit effettuale) led them
to ruin. Machiavelli is more critical of the simplicit of the Orsini band
than he is of the deception and treachery of Cesare. In fact, he praises
this method by which Cesare Borgia obtained more territory and went
on to govern it well. After reviewing Cesares life of duplicity and
perfidy, Machiavelli writes, Taking all these actions of the Duke
together, I can find no fault with him; nay, it seems to me reasonable
to put him forward, as I have done, as a pattern for all such as rise to
power by good fortune and the help of others.193
Following this passage, he goes on to say that anyone who[],
therefore, on entering a new Princedom, judges it necessary to rid
himself of enemies, to conciliate friends, to prevail by force or fraud . .
. can find no brighter example than in the actions of this Prince.194
The words force or fraud prefigure the theme of Chapter 18 of The
Prince, entitled The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word, in
which Machiavelli discusses his famous fox and lion metaphor.
192
193
194
Id. (the Italian reads: si volse alli inganni; e seppe tanto dissimulare
l'animo suo, che li Orsini, mediante el signor Paulo, si riconciliorono seco;
con il quale el duca non manc d'ogni ragione di offizio per assicurarlo,
dandoli danari, veste e cavalli.).
Id. at 29 (the Italian reads: Raccolte io adunque tutte le azioni del duca,
non saprei reprenderlo; anzi mi pare, come ho fatto, di preporlo imitabile a
tutti coloro che per fortuna e con l'armi d'altri sono ascesi allo imperio.
Perch lui, avendo l'animo grande e la sua intenzione alta, non si poteva
governare altrimenti.).
Id. (the Italian reads: Chi adunque iudica necessario nel suo principato
nuovo assicurarsi de' nimici, guadagnarsi delli amici, vincere o per forza o
per fraude . . . non pu trovare e pi freschi esempli che le azioni di
costui.).
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There is a parallel between the lion and the fox in Chapter 18

and Ciceros political work, De Officiis.195 Cicero made the point that
he took to be obviousthe methods of humans and beasts are
different, and the human is nobler. Cicero had written, [T]here are
two ways in which injustice may be done, either through force or
deceit; and deceit seems to belong to a little fox, force to a lion. Both
of them seem most alien to a human being; but deceit deserves a
greater hatred.196 Why did Cicero loathe deceit? Because deceit was
the subversion of Ciceros central virtuejusticethat was the key to
right living and the product of a properly formed mind. In Ciceros
mind, the seriousness of the subversion was compounded because the
most human of faculties, the rational mind, which ought to seek truth,
perpetrated it. The appropriate exercise of ones mind ought to
promote, not subvert, justice. Cicero then went on to say that only in
exceptional circumstances, like war, could one use leonine force, but
he condemned the use of fraud even in these extreme circumstances.
That is, sometimes one could act as a lion, but never as a fox. Cicero
concluded with a denunciation of duplicity, of those who just at the
time when they are most betraying trust, act in such a way that they
might appear to be good men.197 This line of thinking, of course, had
the support of Christianity, humanism, and European thinkers and
society.
Machiavelli inverted the supposedly self-evident proposition
that the human way is superior. In Chapter 18, Machiavelli presses
Ciceros logic, obliterates his ethic of honest action, validates foxy
behavior, and demonstrates his complete approval of trickery
(furberia) as a modus operandi for humans. Machiavelli begins the
chapter by stating that while it is praiseworthy to act with integrity,
history tells us that those Princes who have set little store by their
word, but have known how to overreach men by their cunning, have
accomplished great thing, and in the end got the better of those who
trusted to honest dealing.198 He goes on to say that there are two ways
195
196
197
198
Barlow, supra note 55, at 627-45.

Id. at 636 (quoting Cicero).
Id. (quoting Cicero).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 59 (the Italian reads: quelli principi avere
fatto gran cose che della fede hanno tenuto poco conto, e che hanno saputo
2009-2010]
73
of fighting: by the laws of humans, which disdain fraud and violence,

or by the force of animals. Since human methods do not always suffice
to get what one wants, sometimes one must resort to animal-like
behavior, and a Prince should, therefore, understand how to use well
both the man and the beast. 199 His support for this proposition is
original, an argument based on a reference to the centaur, Chiron,
whom he asserts was the teacher of Achilles and other ancient heroes.
His implication is that Chiron taught the heroes to seek and follow la
verit effettuale, the way of the world, and human methods were
insufficient to get what one wanted.
The animals Machiavelli presents for princely emulation are
the fox and the lion. A prince, he says, should imitate the fox in order
to avoid the traps laid out in life, and emulate the lion to overawe the
strong (but less perceptive) wolves that abound. The worldly wiles of
the foxacuity, ingenuity, and the ability to deceiveare essential;
those relying on the brutish qualities of a lion alone are badly
mistaken. 200 Thus, a prudent prince cannot and should not keep his
word if to do so would go against his interest or if the circumstances
for the promise have changed. The justification for this antisocial
behavior is the perfidy of human beings. He believes human beings are
a sad lot, and keep no faith with you. Therefore, you in turn are under
no obligation to them. In order to get what they wanted, Castruccio
and Cesare could betray and kill their allies without incurring
Machiavellis criticism.
This concept is undoubtedly a marked departure from the
existing early sixteenth order. Dante, the most prominent exponent of
traditional morality, had buried deceivers like Guido of Montefeltro
(??-1298) in the deeper recesses of hell. Guido was the victim of a
deception by Pope Boniface VIII, another inhabitant of Dantes nether
region. An accomplished general and highly astute politician, Guido
was known in Dantes day as the Fox. Conscience-stricken, Guido
199
200
con l'astuzia aggirare e cervelli delli uomini; e alla fine hanno superato
quelli che si sono fondati in su la lealt.).
Id. at 59-60 (the Italian reads: pertanto a uno principe necessario sapere
bene usare la bestia e lo uomo.).
Id. at 60 (the Italian reads: coloro che stanno semplicemente in sul lione,
non se ne intendono.).
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[Vol. 37
entered a monastery to amend his ways. Boniface later approached

Guido for his counsel. At first Guido hesitated, contending that the
appropriate advice would include deceit. In order to placate him,
Boniface gave Guido absolution in advance for any sin committed by
Guido. Thus emboldened, Guido acknowledged that his advice to
promise large with scant observance was sinful, but he felt justified
by the popes absolution. When Guido died, he was taken to hell, for
he gave false counsel (consiglio frodolente) and, Dante wrote, there
could be no absolution for an unrepentant soul. Dante caused Guido to
lament from his despair-filled inferno:
While I was still the form of bone and pulp my
mother gave to me, the deeds I did were not those of a
lion, but a fox. The machinations and the covert ways I
knew them all, and practised so their craft that to the
ends of earth the sound went forth.201
Machiavelli never anguished over his counsel as Guido did in
the Inferno; and he never recanted his advice to princes that they adopt
the ways of a fox or a lion, as the circumstances dictated. He held on
to this view until the end. On his deathbed, Machiavelli had a dream of
ragged beggars going to heaven; then he saw a nobly dressed group of
philosophers and writers going to hell. Machiavelli told his friends
that he would be far happier in hell, where he could discuss politics
with the great men of the ancient world, than in Heaven, where he
would languish in boredom among the blessed and the saintly.202
A fox is a wily animal, one that can slink unobserved close
enough to the center of action to observe the goings-on firsthand, and
from such a position, is able to figure out the situation and formulate
an action plan.203 On August 26, 1513, he writes to Francesco Vettori
that at first, Vettoris letter relating some disturbing political news
201
202
203
DANTE ALIGHIERI, THE DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI: INFERNO

168 (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow trans., George Routledge and Sons
1867) (the Italian reads: Mentre ch'io forma fui d'ossa e di polpe / che la
madre mi di, l'opere mie / non furon leonine, ma di volpe. / Li
accorgimenti e le coperte vie / io seppi tutte, e s menai lor arte / ch'al fine
de la terra il suono uscie.).
VIROLI, supra note 72, at 3.
2009-2010]
75
upset and confused him. After reflecting on the events, Machiavelli

responds, as I became more familiar with it, the same thing happened
to me as it did the fox when he saw the lion: the first time he almost
died of fright; the second he halted behind some bushes to take a look;
the third, he chatted with him. 204 Experience, observation, and
reflection had led the crafty furbo (fox) to reverse his first view of the
lion and to come to an understanding that this lion posed no threat. So
would a wise prince behave with a prudence informed by a realism
that only astute observation and analysis could bring. The successful
Machiavellian prince acts out a role, but must do so with consummate
skill. Machiavelli writes, It is necessary, indeed, to put a good colour
on this nature, and to be skilful [sic] in simulating and dissembling.205
Wayne Rebhorn has argued that in Machiavellis world,
everyone is either a trickster or a gull, a furbo or a fesso, and this
dichotomy includes the characters in his fictional work.206 In Chapter
18 of The Prince, Machiavelli advises the prince to always simulate
being good and virtuous, so that all who see or hear him will judge
him compassionate, honorable, humane, honest, and religious, for
men in general judge rather by the eye than by the hand, for every
one can see but few can touch. Every one sees what you seem, but few
know what you are 207The perceptive fox in Machiavellis letter
reads the situation and understands reality after getting close to the
matter; the fool (fesso) may see, but does not comprehend.
204
205
206
207
NICCOL MACHIAVELLI, LETTERE A FRANCESCO VETTORI E FRANCESCO

GUICCIARDINI 180 (Giorgio Inglese ed., Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli 1996)
(the Italian reads: Ma nel praticarla mi intervenuto come alla volpe,
quando la vedde il leone, che la prima volta fu per morire di paura, la
seconda si ferm a guardarlo drieto ad un cespuglio, la terza gli favell; et
cos io, rassicuratomi nel praticarla, vi risponder.).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 60 (the Italian reads: Ma necessario
questa natura saperla bene colorire ed essere gran simulatore e
dissimulatore.).
See Stephen M. Fallon, Hunting the Fox: Equivocation and Authorial
Duplicity in The Prince, 1185 PMLA 107 (1992).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 61 (the Italian reads: E li uomini in
universali iudicano pi alli occhi che alle mani; perch tocca a vedere a
ognuno, a sentire a pochi. Ognuno vede quello che tu pari, pochi sentono
quello che tu se'.).
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[Vol. 37
Ruth Grant has written that hypocrisy is a great force in

Machiavellis view of politics; that a leader must say one thing and do
another in order to achieve political power. 208 Machiavelli presents
Alexander VI as a successful deceiver who concealed his deception
through sham promises based on his knowledge of la verit effettuale,
that men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present
needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing
dupes.209This crafty (furbo) pope always found fresh material (fessi),
and he consistently succeeded in turning them to his purpose. Yet,
because he understood this side of human nature, his frauds always
succeeded.210
At the end of Chapter 18 of The Prince, Machiavelli lauds the
skullduggery (furberia) of Ferdinand of Aragon that allowed him to
seize Spain from the Moors. He comments that Ferdinand always
preach[ed] peace and good faith, although the mortal enemy of both;
and both, had he practised them as he preaches them, would, oftener
than once, have lost him his kingdom and authority.211 Because they
are victorious in their quests, the Castruccios, Borgias, and Ferdinands
of the world will be praised, regardless of their unscrupulous methods,
since they provide the timorous multitude with the security they
desperately desire, but are too weak to obtain on their own. This
allows the prince to gain the peoples support and make them into
impotent and dependent fools (fessi).
In the same chapter, Machiavelli paints the Roman general,
Severus, as a very ferocious lion and the cleverest fox (astutissima
volpe). He marched his army into Rome under a pretext that he
cleverly concealed from the Senate. Once he entered the city, the
Senate, out of fear, had him crowned emperor. He took care of two
208
209
210
211
RUTH GRANT, HYPOCRISY AND INTEGRITY: MACHIAVELLI, ROUSSEAU, AND

THE ETHICS OF POLITICS 12-13 (University of Chicago Press 1997).
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 60 (the Italian reads: e sono tanto
semplici gli uomini, e tanto obediscano alle necessit presenti, che colui
che inganna troverr sempre chi si lascer ingannare.).
Id. (the Italian reads: nondimeno sempre gli succederno gl'inganni ad
votum, perch conosceva bene questa parte del mondo.).
Id. at 61 (the Italian reads: non predica mai altro che pace e fede, e
dell'una e dell'altra inimicissimo; e l'una e l'altra, quando e' l'avessi
osservata, gli arebbe pi volte tolto o la reputazione o lo stato.).
2009-2010]
77
rivals in exemplary Machiavellian fashion. First, he defeated one by

force, and then he convinced the other to become co-emperor. Once he
gained his partners confidence, he eliminated him. There is no
criticism by Machiavelli of either the murders or the deceptions; he
simply offers them as an example of successful cleverness.212
Perhaps the greatest deceiver was Machiavelli himself. In a
well-known letter to Francesco Guicciardini, dated May 17, 1521,
Machiavelli indicts himself when he writes:
As for the lies of these citizens of Carpi, I can
beat all of them out, because . . . for some time I have
never said what I believe and I never believed what I
said; and if indeed I sometimes tell the truth, I hide it
among so many lies that it is hard to find it out.213
One of his most vociferous critics, Leo Strauss, has argued that
Machiavelli, in Chapter 18 of The Prince, advises his prince to act like
a beast and not as a humane or human being. As Ann Davies has
written, The supreme political realist, Machiavelli separated
questions of religion and morality from Politics.214
Machiavelli writes that deceit is not considered wrong if it
obtains the deceivers desired goal, whether it is power or possessions.
Strauss wrote that Machiavelli believes that it is not only natural to
want to acquire wealth and glory, but that it is within human nature to
be selfish, jealous, unhappy, and predatory. Strauss further stated that
Machiavelli and his friend, Francesco Guicciardini, firmly held to a
theory that a strong self-love was a healthy instinct that needed to be
expressed, not restrained. Therefore, a selfish deed is not per se an evil
act, and, in fact, it can be virtuous when in furtherance of a desirable
212
213
214
Id at 64.
MACHIAVELLI, supra note 204, at 195 (the Italian reads: Quanto alle bugie
de' Carpigiani io ne vorr misura con tutti loro, perch . . . da un tempo in
qua, io non dico mai quello che io credo, n credo mai quel che io dico, et
se pure e' mi vien detto qualche volta il vero, io lo nascondo fra tante bugie,
che difficile a ritrovarlo.) (Machiavelli, in dissembling, was in notorious
company. Luigi Barzini has written of Casanovas diary, My secret is
simple: I always say the truth, and people naturally believe me, he lied.).
Ann Davies, Niccol Machiavelli, in POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 253 (Seymour
Lipset ed., CQ Press 2001).
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[Vol. 37
objective.215 Mary Dietz claims that Machiavellis entire writing is an

exercise in subterfuge. The theme of deceit weaves through all his
workhis drama, his political theory . . . The Prince is not simply
about deception, but is in itself an art of deception.216 In contrast to
Machiavellis rather loose interpretation of a princes duty to rule
consistently with honesty and morality, Grotius proposes that law is
based on its adherence to humanitys rational nature. 217 This law
applies to the prince himself. In the next chapter, we look at several
other important figures in the history of law and then make some
conclusions about Machiavellis influence on international law.
215
216
217

Mary G. Deitz, Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and the Politics of
Deception, 80 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 777-78 (1986).
JOHN FINNIS, ON THE INCOHERENCE OF LEGAL POSITIVISM: PHILOSOPHY OF
LAW AND LEGAL THEORY 135 (Dennis Patterson ed., Blackwell Publishing
2003).
2009-2010]
79
CHAPTER SEVEN
CONCLUSION
The introduction to this article stated my intended purpose: To
show that Machiavelli was instrumental in affecting the thinking and
writing of many scholars and diplomats who succeeded him.
Machiavelli and these successors inspired the philosophers and jurists
who did have a direct effect on the evolution of the law of nations.
Chapter Two looked at the theories of idealism and realism in
Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and others, as these concepts and thinkers
affected Western philosophy and political thinking. Chapter Three
introduced the concept of natural law, an idealistic philosophy that
starts with a priori first principles, encompassing the fields of political
philosophy and jurisprudence. Chapter Four studied Machiavellis
unique contributions in breaking away from traditional idealist
thinking that morality and politics were intertwined. Chapter Five
looked more closely at the father of political sciences radical and
realistic theory of political science. Chapter Six reviewed Grotius, the
father of international law and his natural law reaction to Machiavellis
divorce of ethics and politics.
This Chapter will look at a sampling of philosophers and
thinkers who have continued in the Machiavellian tradition of the
separation of idealistic morality from a realistic examination of how
nations and their rulers behave. I will start with Hobbes and then move
on to Zouse and others.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was a contemporary of Grotius.
Grotius theory of natural law, although secular in nature, echoed
scholastic idealism. Nussbaum states:
Machiavellis ideas may be linked to international law
in so far as his perfect and cynical disregard of any
political morality (not of morality in general) contrasted
sharply with, and formed an extreme reaction to, the
scholastic teachings which purported to subordinate the
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[Vol. 37
whole province of politics and especially the relations

among rulers to the demands of moral theology.218
While Grotius described international relations and
international law as encouraging high ideals among nations, Hobbes
set forth an opposite, more Machiavellian view. 219 In 1650, his
Elements of Law, Natural and Political was published. But he is much
better known for Leviathan (1651), where self-preservation was
emphasized to an elevated degree. Ones greatest motivation is not
only to avoid death, but particularly a violent death.220 In a pristine
state of nature, one would be governed by ones reason as to what is
right conduct. A rational person naturally wants to live in a peaceful
and stable society. But, humans also have more base propensities. In
society, there invariably will be those that cannot be trusted to behave
socially. Rather, they behave as sociopaths. Arthur Nussbaum says,
Hobbes thought, [these types of] men are actuated only by strife for
more and more power. Hence, they are engaged in a war of every man
against every man . . . and aggression is just as legitimate as
defense. 221 Like Machiavelli, Hobbes looks at human conduct and
comes to a realistic picture of how humans actually behave. Hobbes
understood that morality promotes ethical individual conduct; but that
in political settings, dishonorable persons and groups require rational
and just humans to group together for common defense and protection.
Therefore, they enter into a social compact whereby they surrender
some of their personal rights and freedoms to a government that in turn
will provide laws and enforcement, compelling the citizens to behave.
Domestic law, says Hobbes, is the will of such a sovereign power.
According to Hobbes, outside the state constituted by its own
citizens, there is a state of war by all against all. This is the situation
that prevails between sovereign states, tempered only by enlightened
international self-interest, which Hobbes calls jus gentium.222 Note that
Hobbes does not characterize jus gentium as the same genus as
domestic law, which is imposed and enforced by an absolute
218
219
220
221
222

Id. at 112.
THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY, supra note 38, at 388.
NUSSBAUM, supra note 41, at 112 (emphasis added).
Id. at 113.
2009-2010]
81
sovereign. Lacking an autocratic prince, Hobbes, like Machiavelli,

sees that there is no effective means to prevent aggressive efforts to
pursue the states interests. Covenants without swords are mere words.
In pursuing interests, the sovereign (the prince), of course, is the state.
Hobbes strong views on International relations have greatly
and in various ways influenced the doctrine of international law.223
Hobbes was totally secular. He saw the derivation of the law of nature
as coming from the naked self-interest of the individual, not from God.
For Hobbes, the law of nature is not law as a jurist would understand;
it is how to act in self-preservation. He conflated the natural law into
the law of nations, so that an anarchic state was the norm, with war as
a legitimate tool of advancing national self-interest and selfpreservation.
Early international law positivists, the Englishman Richard
Zouse (1590-1660) and the German Samuel Rachel (1628-1691), held
that international law has been accepted by customs or agreed upon by
treaties.224 That is, the states themselves create whatever international
law there is. This law of nations comes not from a natural law theory
of jus gentium, but from a realistic appraisal that states by their acts
and deeds create codes of international conduct. Like Hobbes
individuals, these consenting states surrender some sovereignty to
achieve peace and harmony under settled rules.
Realism, positivism, and skepticism about international law
abound. John Austin (1790-1859) commented that the duties which
international law imposes are enforced by moral sanctions, and can
only be viewed as positive international morality because of the lack
of a central authority that can legislate law and enforce it.225 H.L.A.
Hart (19071993) also denies the status of true law to international
law, arguing that since the international order lacks a supreme
government inclusive of a legislature, courts, and enforcement
authority, the resulting ambiguous and uncertain norms lack the
specificity required of law.226
223
224
225
226
Id. at 113-14.
See generally BEDERMAN, supra note 181.
Id.
Id.
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[Vol. 37
Regardless of whether international law is real law or not,

the Machiavellian dilemma as to how and when to actually live by the
rules, whether established by nature or consent, remains. There is no
doubt where Machiavelli would stand. Whenever there is a conflict
between a princes self-interest and adhering to abstract moral
principles, his man of praiseworthy virt would invariably choose the
action which promotes the princes self-interest. The master himself
writes:
Every one understands how praiseworthy it is in
a Prince to keep faith, and to live uprightly and not
craftily. Nevertheless, we see from what has taken place
in our own days that Princes who have set little store by
their word, but have known how to overreach men by
their cunning, have accomplished great things, and in
the end got the better of those who trusted to honest
dealing.227
Since Machiavelli completely identifies the state with the
persona of the prince, he would argue that for a government to blindly
follow a virtuous and ethical path is not a virtue, but a grievous fault.
An effective ruler does what works, follows la verit effetuale, not
what is morally prescribed.
Given that prescribed norms are fundamental to a system of
laws, how does Machiavellis political realism, permitting defiance of
the law, fit into todays system of international law? I argue that the
evidence establishes that Machiavelli has had an indirect, but very
pervasive, influence on international law as we know it. As noted
above, linking politics and law is an accepted mainstream activity in
both disciplines. 228 I believe that Machiavellis influence has come
down in three different ways:
First, Machiavelli broke with the classical and Christian way of
thinking about what makes a good ruler. Rather than a person who
aligned his personal morality with political action, Machiavelli argued
that the good ruler was a man of action who acted in an effective
manner, not necessarily in the ethical mode. When necessary, his
227
228

See generally SHAW, supra note 1.
2009-2010]
83
prince acted like a fox, dissimulating, saying one thing and doing
another. This philosophy, that in matters of state the ends justify the
means, is a base of the political theory of the reason of state, the
knowledge of the effective means of establishing, preserving, and
enlarging the state by whatever means that succeed.
Second, Machiavelli introduced a hard realism into the art of
politics. It is fitting to recall his own words in the The Prince:
Since it is my object to write what shall be
useful to whosoever understands it, it seems to me
better to follow the real truth rather than an imaginary
view of them. For many Republics and Princedoms
have been imagined that were never seen or known to
exist in reality.229 And the manner in which we live, and
that in which we ought to live, are things so wide
asunder, that he who quits the one to betake himself to
the other is more likely to destroy than to save
himself.230
This realism has influenced international law in a unique way:
by referencing law to actual, observable conduct. For example, Article
38 of the Statute of the International Court of Law lists four sources of
international law:
1. International treaties, establishing rules expressly recognized
by the contesting states;
2. International custom, as evidence of a general practice
accepted as law;
3. The general principles of law recognized by civilized
nations; and
229
230
A thinly veiled reference to Platos Republic.

MACHIAVELLI, supra note 64, at 53 (the Italian reads: Ma sendo l'intento
mio scrivere cosa utile a chi la intende, mi parso pi conveniente andare
drieto alla verit effettuale della cosa che alla imaginazione di essa. E molti
si sono imaginati republiche e principati che non si sono mai visti n
conosciuti essere in vero. Perch egli tanto discosto da come si vive a
come si doverrebbe vivere, che colui che lascia quello che si fa per quello
che si doverrebbe fare, impara pi tosto la ruina che la perservazione
sua.).
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[Vol. 37
4. Judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly

qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary
means for the determination of rules of law.
Each of these sources requires the court to exercise its
competence by looking at real facts and real situations. Treaties are
concrete agreements arrived at by the parties, containing words that
can be scrutinized and analyzed. International custom is determined by
an examination of state practice, not by considering abstract principles
of jurisprudence. General principles are those that are distilled from
the laws and legal systems actually used by states. Judicial decisions
and the writings of jurists are looked to for their analysis of what
actually is the law, not what it ought to be. As Ian Brownlie states,
Judicial decisions are not strictly speaking a formal source, but in
some instances at least they are regarded as authoritative evidence of
the state of the law . . . 231 With respect to the writings of publicists,
Professor Brownlie writes, Once again the source only constitutes
evidence of the law . . . 232
Third, Machiavelli created a maelstrom in Europe that
profoundly affected writers such as Grotius, who in reaction to him,
updated and secularized natural law theories of international relations
and law. Others, including authors such as Pufendorf and Vattel, were
influential naturalists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 233
Nevertheless, the early positivists scorned natural law and turned to an
examination of specific principles evidenced from state practice.
Lockes empiricism denied the existence of innate principles and held
that ideas were derived from experience. Positivism developed after
the Peace of Westphalia and relied heavily on an analysis of real state
practicetreaties and international custom. Deductive appeals to
abstract a priori principles were eliminated. Inductive conclusions
based on the realism of state practice were brought to the forefront.
It is the re-introduction of an unadorned realism that is the
hallmark of Machiavellis political philosophy. For Machiavelli, it was
231
232
233
IAN BROWNLIE, PRINCIPLES

Id. at 23.
SHAW, supra note 1, at 106.
OF
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW 19 (Oxford
2009-2010]
85
better to follow the real truth of things than an imaginary view of

them. 234 Whether one agrees or disagrees with Machiavellis
philosophy, his influence on international law, through his very direct
influence on international relations, is manifest.
234
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MACHIAVELLI AND HIS INFLUENCE ON MODERN

INTERNATIONAL LAW: VICTORY GOES TO THE SWIFT, THE

Theodore J. Biagini, Attorney at Law, was first admitted to practice law in

LINCOLN LAW REVIEW

thoughts on political science and politics as actually practiced, he had

Shirley V. Scott, Identifying the Source and Nature of a States Political